omg, for a moment, I thought that the before was the after! lolol
this was me
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Work asked if I could do some “20 year work anniversary” glasses for them this year (did some last year). Sorry about the pics - hard to take pics of the glassses engraved on both sides.
Another co-worker was having a Quinciera for her daughter and wanted her name/date on small glass globes (I believe they put them on small inverted flowerpots painted to look like gumball machines…)
You can kind of see how silicon carbide does a really smooth engrave - a little more than aluminum oxide which looks more frosted (still nice though!). I really like using the silicon carbide to blast.
PS weeding the ® on the silhouette was not fun (Keeping it on while blasting was even not more !)
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Seems like depending on the artistic effect you want, they produce equally nice but different. The “emily” glass has smoother borders as looks more elegant, while the 20th glasses seem to have more defined edges and are a bit more pronounced. Thanks for showing the difference…
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I just had to wipe drool off my iPad after showing this to my husband. Thanks! 
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large wheeled hand truck. for future reference. 
@sameolegrind so here is my first attempt at luthiering… learned a lot but pretty happy with the results 
Here is a quick video of the neighbor playing it, still unfinished in the video and I added some passive filters to take out some of the “tinny” sound. (I didn’t take the video)
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Beautiful work! Rosewood in that? 
Pigheaded - those turned out great! Nice commemorative pieces.
@sameolegrind - I really like the leather work on that, Gives me inspiration for the handle of my next Bat’leth.
I would really like to learn how that is done.
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That is beautiful. Well done! Reminds me of modern EUB’s. Ive wanted to try one for a while. Thanks for sharing it.
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Agreed, I noticed the leatherwork on @sameolegrind 's piece as well. Nicely done! Also, I’d never heard of sapele wood before, so I googled it to see/learn more. Beautiful stuff
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That Bat’leth is awesome!
I was really happy with the wrapping. I wanted to do something special, rather than just screw on a strap button. Ive never done any wrapping before, much less with leather. Originally I was thinking nautical and was going to use a ringbolt hitch but I wasnt happy with how sparce it looked. I wanted something tighter spaced. That wrap is called a Solomons sword wrap. You can see how to do it here:
Sapele is great to work with! I believe its in the Mahogany family. It works very much like Mahogany but is cheaper and more available. I actually prefer it too because it tends to have a sort of ribbon like figure/chatoyance that in my experience, Mahogany doesnt. At least not as commonly.
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@PrintToLaser thanks, its walnut and maple, the walnut was really purple!
@sameolegrind Thanks, we pretty much just copied the design from a few we found online, just needed to get the first build out of the way:-)
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Yes! I noticed that in some of the google images 
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Yes, reminded me of mahogany with the depth of grain! 
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Thank you so much for the link!
For never having done it, that sure turned out pro!
I don’t buy the old saying “Jack of all trades…” I have learned that a man who is good at one thing is usually good at many.
For the price that thing should command, you should take the rest of the year off.
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Gosh! Seeing things like this always makes me wish I was a string player. I often have to explain that “Yes… A piano has strings. But it’s a percussion instrument.”
Of, course, it’s never too late to learn! Maybe one day I’ll do just that!
Anyway, your first attempt was AMAZING. I hope you realize that!
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Thanks! If you end up trying it, post a pic of the results. Its actually a somewhat therapeutic process. If you take your time, its really not that difficult
Haha… I wish!
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Nice! Makes me think of the Zelda guitar for some reason. Guitar of Waves? Something like that.
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Whoa-ho-ho!!! That’s awesome, and my favorite color! What kind of paint did you use? I tried Valspar oil enamel with Valspar hardener and Valspar primer on an old machine vise. It kind of worked well. The goal was to smooth out the rough casted surface so it would be easier to clean.
Would love to hear what paint and process you used to paint it!
My main concern was rust protection so I just picked the most obnoxiously orange can of rustoleum spray paint I could 
I actually did a poll on my facebook when I was building it asking people for what color I should choose… I ignored all of the results and bought orange because I love it.
I sanded everything making sure every bit of rust I could get at was off and then I did several light coats and then a few heavy ones. Made a pretty good coating!
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Amazing!!