Curly maple & wire inlay RE-DONE

excellent hmmmm i wonder if i could do that??? how long did it take. ? I ll say thats one hell of a good job.
 
Thanks guys,

Hellgap, It took approx. 10 hours to do the wire work. Yes I do have an absurd amount of time in this knife and sheath. I figuring roughly but thinking in the neighborhood of 50 - 60 hours total :eek: It was definatly worth it though and thing will go faster eventually but it takes how long it takes I suppose.

Will52100, Forgot to mention I'm basically using a saddle stich eccept instead of using two needles I'm using one needle and stitching all the way around and all the way back. It is much easier than doing two needles and completing each stich as you go (Thanks Dave !)
 
That knife turned out awesome Josh, especially after the staining!

If that was number 2.........gonna try damascus for #3???
 
Now, "She's Popping", that dark stain really shows off the wire inlay and the handle grain.:thumbup:
 
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Bruce,
I definatly will be working with damascus in the future but certainly not #3. I'm pretty sure that my fit, finish, and handle treatments will progress fairly rapidly. Grinding bevels is another story altogether. I chewed up a paring knife pretty good last night attempting a full height hollow grind :( What's kinda strange is I'm doing very well with my weak hand and had it looking sweet. Changed to strong hand and rode right over the spine got it half straightened out and did it again. I'm gonna try to thin the entire blade to about .060 and put a taper grind on it to salvage whats left. The good news is that I did get beautiful results tapering the tangs of 3 knives so I'm pretty pleased about that. So once my grinding skills improve I'd love to work with Damascus or possible even Stainless damascus but all in due time. I'm seriously thinking about ordering a butt load of 1084 and blanking out 30 or 40 blades and concentrating on nothing but grinding steel to help speed up my learning curve in that area. There are a bunch of cool knives in my head just waiting to come to life but gotta try and master the basics first.

-Josh
 
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What a difference a little stain makes. I didn't comment on your first post because although the inlay looked great the wood color just made the whole thing look kind of blah to me. I just don't care for unstained maple. I've been doing wire inlay for years, mostly on blackpowder rifles. The hardest part to me is the design of the inlay. Actually doing the inlay is just mechanics like drilling holes, etc., but the inlay design itself is art. You did an excellent job in my opinion.
 
Arrowhead,
Thanks for commenting. I have probably a dozen other inlay designs drawn out that are better or fancier than this one but chose to keep it a bit on the simple side for the first one attempting to get a satisfactory outcome. I'm pretty pleased with it though and now that I've got a bit of a feel for it I'll probably go all out on the next one. Hopefully I'll be ready to start on it within a few weeks I've got the blade profiled but planning on doing a few others first without inlay so it may be a little while before we see more inlay work, but it will be comming
-Josh
 
Josh, i ground 20 blades in a row w/o doing anything else to them.All that grinding fer sure was a good thing for my learning curve.Soooo i think it would be a good idea for you as well.

Bryce
 
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Bryce,
Thanks for the input. I haven't forgotten about getting together it's just been a bit hectic on weekends for me lately. Hope to be getting ahold of you soon though.

-Josh
 
FOG2 said:
Cool ! Im unemployed right now sooo anytime is good for me.
Click to expand...

You too Bryce, damn you and Josh can stay home all day and make knives and I have to work, sucks.I was laid off two months ago but got called back after a month, but did enjoy a month in the shop.Dave:)
 
Dave i,ve been outta work since January. There,s a ton of laid off going on!
The wife and i are getting along on her check and my unemployment check alright,so thats good.

Im glad you were able to get back to work quickly.A month off could be seen as a vacation i suppose.

I,ll give you a call soonish to let you critique a batch of knives i,ve been working on.
 
That is one sweet looking blade I think you should send it to me so i can use it ten years or so and make sure that it holds up. All jokes aside that looks alot better with darker wood great job.
 
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