Am I the only one who sees blades everywhere?

Neat!:thumbup:
I usually go for purely functional knives, but some the more artsy knives push the envelope in cool directions.
 
Wade Jones said:
Makes me think of the snake dagger from Conan The Barbarian.
conan-the-barbarian-serpent-snake-dagger-gold.jpg
Click to expand...

He was looking at his medical benefits...maybe he needs to contemplate his design on the tree of woe.
 
The inside coils are really starting to take shape now. I'm using the needle files to cut the preliminary inside grooves (effectively drawing the line of the "staff" the snakes are coiling around down to the point of contact with the snakes), then using the Dremel to smooth out the snake body from the inside curve out.

One of the "crazy" ideas I can't quite seem to purge is to deviate from the standard caduceus design a bit in the area of the snake heads. On the picture the two heads are facing one another. I'm thinking about having one snake face out on each side of the blade instead, so the heads continue the line of the coil. That would also allow me to carve out two eyes for each snake, and the really crazy idea is to mount small gems in those eyes. I have a bunch of tiny gems... but my concern is that they'd just be glued in, and prone to popping out. The gems would really be ancillary to the design... the more significant thing would be the change of the head positioning.

I also spent some time yesterday thinning out the snake bodies so I'd have half a chance of putting a real edge along the outside curves. I probably removed 20% or more of the thickness, substantially flattening the sections that will have an edge. I was worried that might make it look flat and dull, but it really made it look smoother and more sinewy.

- Greg
 
You'll probably be hard pressed to see much difference between today's image and the previous one. I'm starting to turn my attention to smaller details.

Yesterday I spent some time trying to finish the carving out of the areas when one snake crossed under the other. This is slow grueling work being done mostly with needle files, but using a diamond point Dremel bit ti cut a starter groove in some cases.

Today I spent some time working on rounding the center "staff" and smothing out the inside curves of the snake. I'm doing this by cutting some very small sanding belts into very thin strips, and running those across the inside detail areas. It's working fairly well. I'll definitely continue using this method even for final finishing. The result is that most of what I'm doing now is really only going to be visible to someon handling the knife. However, you should be able to see the roundness of the center "staff" showing through.

CadWIP9.JPG
 
Latest. Still can't really see what I'm spending my time on... lots of tiny detail work... plus defining the heads.

CadWIP10.JPG
 
You picked a real tough blade to make, I congradulate you on your enthusiasm for you have a lot of detail work both behind and ahead of you. This is one you will never forget.
 
Hate to keep boring you with pictures that look almost identical, but the truth is I'm spending many hours on small stuff done with needle files. But I am making progress, however slowly. The bar stock that originally weighed in at 6.2 ounces has been reduced to 1.8 ounces, and there's still more to come off before it's done. The most recent work has been around making the thickness of the snakes more even along the length of the body and refining the center "staff" as I change what's covered by the snakes and what is exposed. Also, I have been undercutting the snakes where the two snakes touch one another, so they are separated. That draws the edge up into the blade itself too, but the way. So you see, invisible changes from a photographic point of view... but very visible in the hand.

Also, I finally did decide that each side of the blade should have one snake head.... and I've been doing some shaping on the heads and necks.

CadWIP12.JPG
 
Greg, Your blade is really starting to show what your end vision is. I admire your attention to detail given the work is done mostly by hand. Would it be possible to post a pic kind of on edge? Very cool. Jess
 
Edge pictures are a challenge. This is the best I can do (and it isn't very good).

CadWIP13.JPG
 
It reminds me of the international symbol for docters, the snake around a stafe
I've never worked with cratex wheels in a dremel, but I plan to.
They might be very usefull in your project.
I'm looking forewards to seeing this one finished!
star-of-life-gold.jpg
 
the caduceus and the asclepius are frequently mistaken. enough so that the caduceus is sometimes depicted on medical symbols (us army medical corps insignia for example.)
 
Caduceus, yes that's the one I meant. (I thought I remembered two snakes)
istockphoto_2684585-caduceus.jpg

Piece, protection and healing. Nice symbolic meaning
 
I took a bit of a pause to take a trip to my hometown and visit the family, and another break for Thanksgiving. Truthfully, though, I was trying to figure out a couple of details about this project that hadn't fully resolved themselves in my head.

So having returned to it yesterday I spent a little time working on the snake heads. I know now how they are going to be finished, si I feel confident moving forward with them. This is the first very rough look at the way they are today. By the way, to get a reasonable idea of what I wanted, I went to a toy store and purchased a rubber green snake. This was mostly to better understand the geometry of the head and the placement of the eyes. When completed, the eye holes will be filled.

DSCN5547.JPG
 
You are doing a great job! Its really starting to take shape. I love the leaf blade also.
 
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