I'm trying something.



It's finally beautiful weather in Florida. I like Fall and Winter here.



68 degrees F. So; naturally I'm sitting by the fire ... haha.

I'm trying to bump the record player in my brain, into a different groove. I've been working on this knife so intensely, that I've considered hammering it into a commemorative coin. Here's how it began ....

I "saw" this Live Oak, Malachite, and Ebony Mosaic; everywhere for months. Of course, I don't just make Mosaic. It's a "Mosaic something." And, when I found a suitable blade blank ... it became a Mosaic 97 Folder. The Mosaic process went well, but it is time consuming. However; when complete, it was beautiful. Just what I'd been seeing in my mind's eye.

Should I engrave it? It already has a Damascus blade ... hummmm. Well, Kelly mentioned an idea that I liked. I thought about it. Developed it. Turned it into a monster. I wanted it to be a surprise and I'll keep that in effect. But part of the plot was to engrave some icons. There would be a fe of them. I decided to experiment with some line cut drawings. Not drive up the investment of time toooo high.

I did some validation cuts on test plate. I like it. I had some brand new flame shaped carbide burrs for my air turbine tool. I had some neat ideas. I drew them with pencil. Love it. I began cutting the artwork with the extremely fine point cutter. It cut well, with the correct technique and consistency. I continued. I progressed well. The first solid day of cutting ended late in the evening. It's important to do your engraving as much as possible, all in the same mood/session/technique. If not, small shifts will set in. Sometimes it's observable. There may be nothing at all wrong with any of your work, but your "hand" may be seen to have changed ... session to session.

I'd been cutting highly detailed work. I was using head gear optics. I was pleased with the look. I knew I'd have to "deburr" the cuts. And so, in the morning I decided to deburr and polish a panel. And .... the whole design ... so carefully cut ... just 87% went away ....

Resume story in next window to avoid loosing ....

Hey .... just got a call. My blade Etch Acid is now available from my supplier! Hey - this was a good choice to sit a few minutes.

Back to our story:

I had intended to use a simplier form of engraving in order to not have such an investment of time and effort. This method would be called "Line Cut". The way that you would create a sketch or a block print. You can do shading with many small lines or points (dots), but the image is flat. It's on the level of the bolster's surface. I don't do this much - I mostly do "Relief Carving" which removes the background, and leaves the subject in raised and rounded relief. It's a much more complex form. While we are holding our Webinar .... the only other main form of ingraving is "Intaglio." This is where the figures are cut into the base material, in the form of "dishing out" the material. A head then becomes a basic "bowl" in Intaglio engraving, where it's a "sphere" in Relief Carving, and it's a "Shaded Sketch" in "line cut" work.

Back to my fun. So: when burr was removed from my line cut work, the remaining lines were like finger prints to the eye. Here's the mechanical reason. I wasn't just too dumb to know how deep I was cutting. The pointed/bladed tool bit goes into s collet chuck that free spins at about 400,000 rpms. It screams. As the bit cuts the metal, it displaces the flakes it cuts off ..... IN A PERFECT WORLD....

In reality, it smears some of the metal aside. A crude analogy would be to drag a stick thru dirt. Your result is a groove/trench, WITH displaced dirt mounded up on each side of the entire groove. I'm engraving, we'd LOVE for the bits to cleanly shear off the waste material and have it blow away (unless you are engraving gold or platinum ... whoooh!). Now; this case is hard Alloy Aluminum, so it would be nice for the shavings and grinding to disappear. As I OBSERVED what I was cutting, the designs looked great. I knew the burr was there and adding to the width of the lines, but I knew I was cutting a good depth and the design would be almost as wide as I was seeing. Well, when I scuff sanded the burr ridges away, the design remained as the finest or fine razor cuts!!! That's not possible!!!! The burr was well engaged into the metal!!!..... ahhhhh ..... crap!!! The burr's rotation also MELTED the cut material.... which then fused back into place on each side wall of the cut! Nutz.

No; it wouldn't be s perfect weld that your trust your life to ... but it was pretty darned "welded" in those grooves and the line/groove left behind was absurdly narrow. WELL!!!! Isn't that a fine mess now. Good thing you felt so good about the work. And kept going and going - hour after hour. You say softly .... WHY DIDNT YOU BEBURR AND POLISH SOME!!!!????" Well, that would be the "One Hand" discussion we had. I was in the flow.

Ok. So now what? Now what??? Now I turn EACH one of the designs into EITHER a Relief Cut OR an Intaglio Cut. ALL of them. Or else .... I throw the whole thing away.

And so; I've been carving and engraving. It looks very good. It looks much better than I wanted it to. It looks like much more money than I will ask for it. It's going to be a very nice knife, and I'm really sick of working on it, especially knowing I'm doing again, what I already did ... and I'm hoping and praying that each section ends up lighting my dials up as well in Relief, or Intaglio - as they did in Line Cuts.

Gary

Gary
That's a bummer polishing away your picaso. Do you have to go deeper or maybe electric tools instead of hand chiseled? Either way it's a minor set back with that knife having Damascus blade with fresh acid and the scales are beautiful. I know it's hard when you SEE it and your first attempt isn't what you thought it would be . You can rest assured you will figure it out and for us , it will be a lucky day for someone to own it .

Thanks
Kurt