Thank you gentleman
Your daring engraving and gold inlays on Mother-of-Pearl handles
is something never before seen on modern custom knives.
David Darom (ddd)
Thank you David,
Your patronage on the original Darom Johnson "David's Fighter" was the inspiration for the entire genre.
As you know Mr Steve Lindsay introduced us and encouraged me to engrave on the pearl. This is how I remembered it a few months ago:
"I call this " Gilded Pearl Technique"
It is an original technique that I learned myself.
It is partly inspired by work I had seen in Japan where gold is combined with pearl and other things, but the style is mine, which I developed in my work in the gun and knife business in the USA.
You may know I was trained in the USA as an engraver in the 1970's and 1980's.
I have traveled to many places studying damascene and engraving including Japan, England, Italy, Egypt , China, Thailand, and Indonesia.
This technique is a combination of all I learned before, using special tools made solely for this purpose.
When I first imagined it I was in Japan staying at a traditional hotel:
http://www.ccn2.aitai.ne.jp/~akane/tanken.html
It was early in the morning, I was meditating in this little garden.
I had been studying the Damascene, and visiting a father and son who make and engrave Samurai swords.
There were all these different techniques floating around in my head.
White pearl kept popping into my mind, and the damascene doors from the Ali Hussein Mosque in Cairo, All these differing images were disturbing my meditations.
Suddenly the gold appeared in the pearl, and the tools, special tools, for guilding the pearl appeared before me like they were floating in the air, like a vision.
When I arrived home weeks later, I had forgotten all about it.
David Darom Called me and asked me if I would do the Knife, and that he would have it sent to me.
When it arrived a few days later, I opened the package.
It had the same white pearl I had imagined.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck as everything came back to me.
I made the tools and went to work."
As you can see, this " Gilded Pearl " technique would never have been developed if it had not been for your patronage Mr. Darom.
I thank you and wish you all the best.
Barry Lee Hands
