Metal Musings Blog

Now to inlay the gold wire for the legs.

Above, I’ve used an opaque white Sharpie™ permanent felt tip marker to make a background for my drawing, and have drawn in the legs for the first ant.

Using a small 90 degree graver, I’ve cut the legs to the depth and width I want.  The legs are especially important because they provide the “character, emotion and expression” for the ants, along with the orientation and relationship of the body segments.

Above, I’ve added undercuts on both sides of the channels I engraved for the legs.  I’ve used a small, symmetrical flat chisel and just punched them in.  I leave a little gap between each undercut, to help keep the wire from “crawling” along the channel as I inlay it.  I’m using a brass punch with roughened face to do the pounding in of the 24 karat gold wire.  I roughen the brass punch by tapping it vertically down on a fine grit diamond graver sharpening lap (wheel).

Here’s the gold inlaid into the legs.  I’ve punched it down pretty well with the brass punch, and have sort of levelled it off by additional punching.  This takes the excess round wire and expands it into gold leaf, which can easily be removed with a small scraper.

Above are the legs after scraping and a quick and dirty patina.

In order to add additional contrast between the legs and the background, I’ve gone back and engraved VERY fine lines alongside the gold inlays.  Later, when I ink the piece, these will add greatly to the appearance.

Here they are, pretty much finished.  Now to carve the remaining surfaces.

Inlaying the 24 karat gold wire – I folded the wire to fit into the rear part of the inlay pocket, then annealed the wire.

Above is the entire ant, with three folded wire inlays.

All three ants with filled inlay pockets.

I’ve used the ant punches to do the preliminary sculpting of the ants, carefully trying to align them with the (invisible) cavity edges.

Here’s a magnified version after using the punches.

Above is an ant after trimming the excess gold around the edges, followed by burnishing with steel wool.

Here is an ant after a quick patination of the shibuichi.

And an overview.  For a more detailed discussion of the inlay process, look here:  Ants Miseretto part 10 – Risk Reduction

Next, inlay the legs – that will be 18 total.  Yikes!…

I’m back in the saddle again!
I’ve installed the dagger in my engraver’s vise and used my three “ant punches” to lightly punch three ants in the shibuichi handle scale.

Here’s a closer view, just lightly punched.  I wouldn’t be doing this if the handle scales were steel or titanium, that would probably ruin my punches.

Above, I’ve begun cutting the inlay pocket using my Lindsay Palm Control Airgraver and a small 90 degree graver.

Here I’ve excavated the pocket with the 90 degree graver and small carbide burs.  I’m striving to keep the bottom as flat as I can.

 Above are all three pockets excavated, both an overall view and a  close up.

I decided to try something new here by using a punch in my airgraver and punching the bottom of the inlay pocket flat.  I’m hoping to work harden the area locally so as to proved a better ground for the next step, cutting a forest of small burs in the bottom to help trap the inlaid gold.

Here are the tiny little lines cut into the bottom of the inlay pocket to make the forest of little burs.  I’ve also punched undercuts around the bottom edges of the inlay pocket.  If you look closely, you can see where the metal has been displaced upwards around the upper edges.  You can see more about this particular process here:  Ants Miseretto part 10 – Risk Reduction
Tomorrow, I’ll begin inlaying the gold…