It is first and foremost, a giant "thank you" to The Man, Mr. Ron Kelley.
His expertise and mastery of knapping are well known here, so I don't need to explain that to any of you, but I will explain the reason for this post. Three years ago I began a major renovation of my house. It was an exiting time as my wife and I bought the home she was raised in from her Mom after her Father passed away, and we lived in it as-is for about 12 years. It was a big house, way more than we need, but it meant a lot to her so I couldn't say no. Her father was an engineer, and true to form, every thing in the home had to be functional, damn the looks or comfort, function trumped everything. We finally decided to make this place our own and I have literally built a new Ouse around the old one, torn the old one inside down, then rebuilt it. I know, it sounds crazy. It IS crazy.
anyway, about 2 months into the remodel, my Dad was visiting me and going with me on a road trip to Texas to pick up this maginificent front door I had built. The morning of our departure, my phone rand at 5:30 and it was my dad's neighbor telling me his house was on fire. He and my mom lived two hours away, so I woke him(he was in a spare bedroom) and began trying to call my Mom. Unable to reach her, we lit out at a high rate of speed, arriving to find the home surrounded by two fire departments and countless neighbors trying to help in any way they could.
I'll speed through this part because it's not fun. My mom died in the fire, the house and everything in it were a total loss. Three years later that still hurts to write.
where does AH.com and Mr. Ron Kelley come into this story? Well...as part of the remodel, I have done my best to instill my wife and mine's fingerprint in everything. It has a very rustic feel to it. I've used a lot of cypress cut by a friend off our farm back home for the trim. The door I mentioned is arched, and the entryway is arched, so I made a "keystone" out of mahogany to match the door, and the archway above it is trimmed in cypress, also with a "keystone". One more keystone over the fireplace/mantel/tv...and since this one is sort of the focus of the entire room, I wanted it to be special. I had wanted to do an inlay with a nice arrowhead in the wood, but I lost about 95% of my colection in the aforementioned fire. I asked Ron if he might sell me one, (those of you who have seen his work know 😳)and he refused, so I offered to trade with him. He agreed to that, and I set to making him a copper bopper. Well...I'm still working on perfecting that thing, but in the meantime I made him a knife. I do custom knife work for friends and family, and have for about twenty years.
There's no way the knife I made could ever come close to repaying what you've given me, Ron. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
His expertise and mastery of knapping are well known here, so I don't need to explain that to any of you, but I will explain the reason for this post. Three years ago I began a major renovation of my house. It was an exiting time as my wife and I bought the home she was raised in from her Mom after her Father passed away, and we lived in it as-is for about 12 years. It was a big house, way more than we need, but it meant a lot to her so I couldn't say no. Her father was an engineer, and true to form, every thing in the home had to be functional, damn the looks or comfort, function trumped everything. We finally decided to make this place our own and I have literally built a new Ouse around the old one, torn the old one inside down, then rebuilt it. I know, it sounds crazy. It IS crazy.
anyway, about 2 months into the remodel, my Dad was visiting me and going with me on a road trip to Texas to pick up this maginificent front door I had built. The morning of our departure, my phone rand at 5:30 and it was my dad's neighbor telling me his house was on fire. He and my mom lived two hours away, so I woke him(he was in a spare bedroom) and began trying to call my Mom. Unable to reach her, we lit out at a high rate of speed, arriving to find the home surrounded by two fire departments and countless neighbors trying to help in any way they could.
I'll speed through this part because it's not fun. My mom died in the fire, the house and everything in it were a total loss. Three years later that still hurts to write.
where does AH.com and Mr. Ron Kelley come into this story? Well...as part of the remodel, I have done my best to instill my wife and mine's fingerprint in everything. It has a very rustic feel to it. I've used a lot of cypress cut by a friend off our farm back home for the trim. The door I mentioned is arched, and the entryway is arched, so I made a "keystone" out of mahogany to match the door, and the archway above it is trimmed in cypress, also with a "keystone". One more keystone over the fireplace/mantel/tv...and since this one is sort of the focus of the entire room, I wanted it to be special. I had wanted to do an inlay with a nice arrowhead in the wood, but I lost about 95% of my colection in the aforementioned fire. I asked Ron if he might sell me one, (those of you who have seen his work know 😳)and he refused, so I offered to trade with him. He agreed to that, and I set to making him a copper bopper. Well...I'm still working on perfecting that thing, but in the meantime I made him a knife. I do custom knife work for friends and family, and have for about twenty years.
There's no way the knife I made could ever come close to repaying what you've given me, Ron. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
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