Metal Musings Blog

Finished the sculpting today! Here’s a before and after of the squid-thing. Lastly will be detailing with rivets and panels , then stippling the background (ugh!)

Big push on finishing the background stippling today. Here, I’ve been working around the edges of the bad tempered anglerfish…

Yay! The stippling is done (except for the tiny spot I missed – can you spot it?)… Next are rivets and panels, then it’s finally done!

At long last! It’s done, and here’s the beauty shot. The details: William Henry model B12 scales, 4 inches long 416 stainless steel, hand engraved with 24 karat gold and copper inlays.

Thanks for looking!

Well, I’m baaaack! With the unmasking of Side B of the Steampunk Viperfish. At the top is THE PLAN, the center has the design transferred to the steel knife scale, and the bottom has had all of the major lines engraved. Tomorrow, I’ll start the copper and 24 karat gold inlays. See you then!

Here’s the anatomy of a large copper inlay. 1st image: three copper wires “tacked” into place. You can see tiny “hooks” engraved into the bottom of the inlay pocket. 2nd image: all wires tacked onto place. 3rd image: copper wires have been punched into the hooks in the pocket bottom, and flowed into the undercut edges. 4th image: the copper has been stoned flat, and tiny lines engraved around the steel edges.

Almost all of the copper inlays in place. Next, the gold inlays…

I got some of the gold inlaid today before I burned out…

Finished the gold on the steampunk anglerfish. Bear with me a little longer, just a couple more inlays on the squid-thing and then fun stuff will begin happening…

Inlaying gold wire into a complex gear. I add in short gold wire segments, which will become a solid mass when hammered into place.

The same gear hammered and stoned smooth and flat.

All of the squid-thing inlays are finished. Next I’ll begin excavating the background and sculpting the elements.

Background removal around the anglerfish. Still need to stipple the background…long way to go yet…

A big push today towards background removal – sorry there’s not more to see.

Yippee – almost all of the background removal is finally done. Next is background stippling to increase the contrast, then on to the fun part, sculpting!

Spent most of the day making small circle punches to make the pins in the squid-thing’s bicycle chain tentacles. Here I’m turning a taper on the business end of one of the punches on a tiny Sherline lathe.

You can see the four different sized punches I made in the center of the image

, and the test marks at the blue arrow. I also placed all of the circular pivot pin marks on the bicycle chain tentacles.

I spent today sculpting the tentacle attachments to the squid-thing. These were way more complex to sculpt than I had anticipated…

A lot done today on the tentacles. The half on the right are finished, punch work left to do on the left…

The bad tempered anglerfish is fully sculpted, and except for rivets and a few panels, is finished

Starting a new project – a pair of steampunk knife scales for William Henry Knives. Follow along with me as I progress, it’s nice to have company!

I’ve cut all of the major lines, and next I’ll start on the copper and gold inlays.

This is one of the rays on the big fin, ready for a copper wire inlay. You can see where I’ve undercut the bottom edges of a V- cut. When I pound in copper wire, the softer metal will flow into these undercuts, trapping the copper.

Here’s the copper wire starting to be hammered into place. It’s stuck tight enough at this point that I’m not having to hold the wire in place.

Here’s the copper hammered into place and trimmed flush with the steel surface.

The finished inlays, stoned flat and smooth, with a tiny engraved line cut around the edges. And that’s my day…

I couldn’t face any more inlays today, so I worked on background removal. I also sculpted the fins and the bicycle chain backbone.

I managed enough engraving time to put in the largest copper inlay. These are kind of a pain, but very necessary to the design…

This image is with a new closeup lens for my iPhone. What do you think?

Beginning the excavation for another copper gear inlay…

I carved away all the parallel cuts , and cleaned up the edges…

Here I’ve undercut all the edges and created a forest of tiny hooks in the bottom of the pocket. These will bite into the soft copper, permanently trapping it…

Filling the gear teeth with short pieces of copper wire.

Here I’ve wound copper wire into the cavity, lightly hammering it into the little hooks at the bottom. It’s now held fast, ready for me to hammer it all together her into a single mass…


The finished gear inlay. I’ve scraped and stoned it smooth, and added tiny boundary cuts.  I’ve firmly hammered the wire so it all flows together. It’s also overflowed the banks of the pond…I’ll be carefully scraping away the excess back down to the surface of the steel.

I also finished the copper and gold inlays on the unlucky little ugly fish.

I’ve mostly finished the unlucky little ugly fish. Still a few rivets to add in, but those will come towards the end…

I got the big scary 24 karat gold teeth inlaid today. Now this fish can bite…


Eye inlaid, and beginning to excavate around the big teeth…now the scary fish can see with big mindless killer eyes…

I finished the last inlay and all of the background removal. Next will be sculpting the big fish head, then stippling the background. We’re almost finished with this side…but there’s still Side B to go! The adventure continues…

Thanks for looking!