Mesh Splitting

This is a quick tutorial on splitting a mesh in Blender with a guide plug. Start with your beautiful mesh. I’ve added Blender’s Suzanne mascot: The first thing we’re going to do is create a cutting mesh. This will determine the shape of the guide plug and shape of the cutting surface. First, create a mesh for the plug. Press Shift+A to add a mesh. I’ve chosen a cylinder, but you can use whatever mesh you want. A box-shaped plug will prevent the two halves from rotating and might be a better choice. You can expand the menu in the bottom left to input the exact dimensions of the mesh: ...

September 15, 2026

So You Want to Be a Blacksmith

Great! Welcome to a wonderful hobby. The purpose of this post is to outline how to get started and stay safe while doing so. I have a tendency to ramble, so I’ve included a concise “quickstart” guide. I’ve written this under the assumption that the reader is a beginner and does not have the space/time/money to set up their own blacksmithing shop. For that reason, I’ve excluded much information on equipment and materials, assuming these will be available from a teacher. I’ve also covered basically nothing about the actual process of blacksmithing. This will come from in-person mentorship and the John Switzer / Black Bear Forge link below contains many excellent instructional videos about how to actually make things. ...

September 12, 2026

Forging Ahead, Er, a Superman

Today is going to be super. I have a friend who’s a huge superman nerd and has a name starting with “S”, and who recently had a birthday and got published. I thought I’d forge a Superman S as a celebratory gift, but by the end of it, I was feeling like our good buddy Clark up there. The Failed Attempt Prototype I’m going to jump to the results pretty quickly and discuss the process afterwards. There have been about a million variations of the Superman S over the years, but I decided to follow the Superman (2025) movie: ...

June 27, 2026