• Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      I make swords and knives as a hobby.

      You can get these specific colors by heating the steel up. Getting these colors ruins the temper, though, and you’ll have a pretty display sword that won’t hold an edge. Perfectly fine if you never intend to seize the means of production, but I like to keep my steel properly hardened.

      • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s so cool! Do you have a gallery anywhere of your work?

        I would love to get into jewelry design, metalsmithing, etc. It is such a satisfying way to work with your hands and science! Unfortunately as a hobby it requires actual property space not an apartment :,)

        • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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          8 months ago

          I used to have an Instagram page but I stopped updating and eventually deleted it because Facebook.

          So basically I just have what I take pictures of, when people are interested, I show a few examples. I don’t advertise my stuff because it’s just a hobby and I refuse to make it my job.

          a picture of the last commissioned piece before I finished the leather work, spoiler alert they’re divorced less than a year later

          a replica of the Hunter Blade from the video game Destiny I don’t know what to do with

          a kitchen knife I made 7 years ago and still use weekly

          A hunting/cleaning knife I sold for the birthday of someone who will never go hunting and faints at the sight of uncooked hamburger.

          Small knife I made for my wife that she uses to cut up her apples

          • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            So cool! Thank you for sharing. I love how your first knife is still going strong and you can plainly see you used the same wood for the handle.

            Man if you ever wanted to try working on some other replicas, supernatural has some cool knives. Especially Ruby’s demon blade.

          • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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            8 months ago

            Boooooooo!

            LOL no if you enjoy it that’s cool, I just personally can’t watch it. It’s completely unrealistic and doesn’t give the layperson a good representation of the skill.

            I actually know a guy who was an early contestant and absolutely bombed on his first attempt. Fantastic knives though. It’s his primary source of income and better than anything I’ve made. Just doesn’t work well under pressure already, and the unrealistic goals they set for quick work don’t take into account any sort of materials issues.

            I hate when they use scrap metal for any kind of challenge because unless they really did a lot of prep work, shitty materials can be mixed in with good ones and you wouldn’t know without being able to do your own tests beforehand that take time.

            I wonder how many other hobbies/professions have this happen to them, where everyone goes “hey you would like X because you’re Y” but it’s a poor representation and they don’t like it. Like nerds and big bang theory.

      • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Would it be possible to coat it and color the coating like this without damaging the temper? Iirc aluminum you can do it with electricity (I don’t know anything about this forgive me), so maybe aluminum coating and zap it?

        • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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          8 months ago

          Electroplating/Anodizing is the term you’re thinking of.

          One thing I’ve done with a knife is copper coating.

          I used a combination of copper sulfate from the hardware store (fungicide/algecide in blue crystal form) and a bit of salt and baking soda to make the electrolyte solution, a piece of copper pipe on one end of the wire and the knife blade on the other.

          I should have done an intermediate nickel layer but I was experimenting and didn’t prep right or electro plate super long

          End result was a copper colored knife with a shiny steel blade edge. If I left it in longer it could have built up enough copper to polish it up.

          To get a trans flag you would need to use a combination of different methods from electroplating to titanium vapor.

          Supposedly you can electroplate aluminum onto steel, so you could simply electroplate the steel with aluminum, then do the normal acid dye for the anodizing the aluminum. Then a quick sharpening of the edge and you’re good to go.

          Regardless of the method, it would look fuckin rad

        • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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          8 months ago

          That was my first thought. It shouldn’t be too hard to expose different areas to the electrolyte for a time and do a different voltage for each.

          Haven’t seen that, though. And the choice of colours isn’t quite arbitrary, but it should be possible to do some things.

  • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    https://news.berkeley.edu/2010/03/01/frogs

    Pesticide atrazine can turn male frogs into females

    Atrazine, one of the world’s most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.

    The 75 percent that are chemically castrated are essentially “dead” because of their inability to reproduce in the wild, reports UC Berkeley’s Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology.

    Who has the link for the gay swords?

    • JojoWakaki@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Wait. Youre telling me that guy from the memes was telling the truth?

      So what else is also true?

      Was the pandemic and the lockdown really orchestrated by the government to change the batteries of all the pigeons too?

      • PhineaZ@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        I wouldn’t consider frogs changing sex to be “gay” , so it’s not exactly true. But yes, the basis of the claim (“does something to frogs”) is correct and arguably worth being worried about

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        He wasn’t telling the truth at all, he just made up a bunch of lies that had the vary base kernel of truth that he could use for his psychotic narratives.

        That’s Jones’ MO about everything, and you can hear him vamping and making shit up after he finishes cold reading a headline (or in the middle of it).

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        It’s true that agricultural runoff was introducing chemicals to waterways causing frogs to change sex. The issue of pesticides washing off of farmland into waterways and having devastating effects is a very serious issue that needs a spotlight on it. Our “good” “friend” Alex Jones took this singular kernel of truth, discarded the entire ecosystem angle, and told his followers that the chemicals were being introduced deliberately to further the LGBTQ agenda.

        I’d still call that a lie.