After a lot of design pain I’ve finally come up with a design for this side of the knife – One-eyed Odin. Above, you can see the design transferred to the knife scale, ready to begin the engraving process.
Above, I’ve engraved all of the major lines and begun the gold inlay process. On one side of Odin’s helmet you can see a mostly completed 24 karat gold inlay, and on the right side you can see a pocket I cut out for the other inlay. Incidentally, this inlay is too wide for a single gold wire, so I’m using a technique of inlaying parallel gold wires into the pocket, and them hammering them down into undercut grooves. Above the surface, the gold will run across the surface and run into the adjacent gold wire. As long as I keep the gold pretty clean, the separate wires will cold weld together and result in a really strong and wide band of 24 karat gold.
Above, I’ve completed both gold inlays, and also removed and textured the backgrounds. On Odin’s helmet, I’ve chosen a bold texture for the relieved background, and a finely stippled background for the Celtic ribbons of Odin’s beard.
Next
, I’ll begin placing in carefully thought out and very tiny shading lines, which will really make the engraving pop to life.
Thanks for Looking!