Thanks for the few who have wished me well. It’s been noted and appreciated. Let’s start this way: The White Beard at the Bench has been working in spite of some serious pain. Probably the most sustained pain and the most active areas of pain. That makes for an uncomfortable work day. Starts and ends same times. Packs in more ouch per hour (OPH). I’ll get thru this part quick. Stick around for the punch line.
I’ve been pretty good at working for many years now with pain. But what doesn’t get better, often gets worse. You can’t have a bunch of degraded discs for decades, with arthritis; and have them support your spine. It’s just mechanical. Well, my mess has progressed to where it’s caused Scoliosis in two directions. Not just something a sensitive meter can detect. More like deformity a casual observer can see from 200 yards. And those twists put pressure on the nerve bundles that exit the spinal cord between the vertebrae. And that hurts.
Last. “Enough Sustained Pain Penetrates”. I’ll get to that in a minute. First “Well why don’t you just get it fixed?” First, “it” is not just an “it”. It’s a whole back full of pieces and nerves and muscles and old pliers. To “fix” it, they open your back like a Garment Bag. Install about a three foot steel rod with a wheelbarrow full of clamps. They jack your bones left right up down. They try not to have you wind up worse. Once your jacked up bones are all ... ah ... jacked ‘round, they drill and screw it all together and zip you up. Oh, I’ve been told my arthritic bones probably wouldn’t even hold screws. (That’s the wind up worse part ... where a loose screw and a bone chip nips your spinal cord. They say you need a year to heal. I’ll just call the electric Company. They’ll understand.

Ok, about the Oak Leaves. They’re coming. That part about Pain Penetrates? It can make you engrave half a project as a “Die” and the other half as “Realism” (meaning - it isn’t currently a “die”. You recall how a die has the tip of a person’s nose as the deepest cut of the die? Well my beautiful die prints half and half. Like a Lady with a recessed nose and frog eyes. Now, I’m just about finished another die that is 100% all die. I’m gonna finish carving last pass and heat treat today. Yayyyyy

I might yet realize an application for the last die, after alteration. But I’m not seeing it just yet. So please give me another chance to please. I’m working hard thru a high level of OPH.

Much much appreciated,
Gary