From: rusty.hinge@foobar.girolle.co.uk   
      
   Lachlan - KotU wrote:   
      
   > I have a very nice old Puukko too, I got it on Ebay back in the days   
   > when they trusted us to buy knives and not be naughty with them.  It   
   > truly is a very nice knife, I'll get a pic of it and post a link.  It   
   > looks very hand made, and it takes an unbelievably good edge.   
      
   Probably Damascus steel, then. Or are you just comparing it with modern   
   crap stainless blades that get blunted by warm butter?   
      
   Yes, I'd like to see it. I believe most, if not all the old ones were   
   made by one person, who was apprenticed to, or worked under, a Sheffield   
   cutler, and took the skills back to Finland. I must read him up.   
      
   I bought the knife in an antique shop last month. The sheath was crushed   
   and the blade must have been used for taking the mortar off bricks, or   
   digging the soil or something, as its point was completely rounded-off,   
   and the brass had been painted with something brown, and while this was   
   mostly gone, it still disfigured parts. (Might have been original, but   
   there was too little to consider keeping.   
      
   A few hour in the workshop with files and stones has restored it to   
   something like its former glory.   
      
   > Couldn't help noticing your domain name, you wouldn't happen to be   
   > another mushroom picking fella like myself by any chance?   
      
   Indeed - I have just collected big bag of Lactarius pubescens; a Russula   
   I can't identify; a few parrot caps; some *HUGE* Clitocybe nebularis;   
   several Helvella crispa; a dozen or so Lepista nuda; and a couple of   
   Lactarius deliciousus.   
      
   Russula has purple top as in R. atropurpurpurea, but has a purple stipe   
   - denser colour than R. violeipes.   
      
   I started with puffballs and Merasmius oreades in 1951, and really got   
   into it in 1954 when I found Mushrooms and Toadstools by John Ramsbottom   
   in the library. It had never been taken out...   
      
   Thinking 'I know something about them' I leafed through it and was   
   amazed - and took the book out, and renewed it and re-renewed it until   
   the leaf inside the cover had to have a new one over it. Then I got a   
   prize at school for GCE results and chose that book.   
      
   The rest, as they (don't) say, is mycology. I was delighted to discover   
   that the domain was available.   
      
   Coo! The spellcheck has learnt a few new words...   
      
   --   
   Rusty   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)