Read a story about Larry by Dan Sorenson | Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Sunday, July 4, 2010 12:00 am

I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, and am a 1981 graduate of the University of Arizona School of Architecture in Tucson. I have been practicing architecture in Tucson since 1981.

Scrimshaw became a hobby after I received a small scrimmed tooth in 1979. The first piece was a Gerber knife that I rehandled with Micarta (picture below — pretty crude!).

Over the years, I produced many pieces of jewelry and knives, usually tearing commercial knives down and rehandling with Micarta or ivory. A book of knife making taught me the rudiments of acid etching and leather sheath-making. During the eighties, many blades from Bob Engnath's House of Muzzleloading were purchased, constructed, and sheathed.

There were several years of hiatus while working and raising a son. A few years ago, the rusty blade blanks hanging in the workshop — including two Engnath blades over ten years old — finally shamed me into starting up again. One of the blades was a tanto style, and that led me to attempting my own daisho (that and the fact I couldn't afford to buy anyone else's).

Other hobbies have included oil painting, acrylics, color pencil drawings, and model-making. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and Tang Soo Do, and practice the long and short staff, escrima sticks, and sword.

In late 2009, I began forging some blades of my own, having taken some forging courses at the local community college. These blades are mostly historical in design, as I like to keep the hammer marks showing. Several of these forged pieces were entered into student art competition (April 2010) and were accepted for the gallery show.

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