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!