Fairly Knives Chat - For people who like Knives, have Knives or use Knives.

Status
Not open for further replies.
I've been out in the heat treat shop, man it is cold out! It will warm up in a bit...

Waki straightened, check! I'm about to go quench it. :D
 
Daniel Fairly Knives said:
More pics! How thick is it?

Do you have a flex shaft or dremel? You may be able to set a stone yourself. I bet you could make some killer burnishers too!

Maybe buy some sapphires and practice settings on some brass or something? You can buy nice white sapphires for as low as $1 ct, they are a great deal. CZ prices... We have never made any solid settings from scratch; right when we were getting into bezel settings and getting going silver went from $5/oz to $40/oz.

I might get back into cutting stone, I was working with black jade and welo opal and want to get into tube setting opal in the jade. I also priced out some sterling for heavy bracelets, lol it was $490 for 6-8 bracelets worth! I want to try this style with deep stamping, it is popular here and the good pieces easily sell for $500. Maybe later at that price for stock! Fun stuff
Click to expand...

Ok, here is another pic, it is 1.78mm wide according to my highly calibrated eyeballs. Yes I do have a dremel, I just need to look up how to set a stone. Burnishers for what? Geeze, its pretty amazing I managed to get anything resembling a ring done, I don't know sh!t from Shinola with this stuff! I have some M4 graver bits and can swing a hammer, so I should be able to do some wire inlay, lol!

2013-05-03081517_zpsae3b5fcf.jpg



Rolf, get me yer email addy and I wll send it to you directly. I don't have it hosted aywhere right now, so I don't know if Daniel can forward it along.


Morning ya scallywags!

-X
 
Phill Hartsfield made me an Aikuchi with a 9" blade. It was my favorite FB ever. I will get one again.
Xander- Here I come.
 
Yarrgghh good morning! :D

Burnisher - moves and polished metal, we used them to fine tune settings on ewelry we sold.
https://www.monsterslayer.com/Pages/HandTools/HandTools.aspx

To really sum things up you can drill a hole then counterbore it, set a stone in and burnish the top over to set it. That is just one way and I'm talking with no experience here so you know...

tube setting tutorial, you an drill the "tube" from stock too (like the ring) http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/tube-setting.htm

jewelry background
My wife likes to work with wire and almost all of her work was wire work. She made mostly ear rings and bracelets. Chain mail too like Byzantine links... When I was cutting stone I just did very simple cabs (but cut differently for wire work and often double sided) and sold them to local wire work jewelers. There were a few people that made a ton of jewelry so everything cab-wise went to them. Our work was way different, there is a big scene here for jewelry so we had to make a niche. lol we even owned a craft fair for a while... We were also the first people I know of to import Larimar into this area, now there is a store in every town. I also got way into collecting rough and have literally found and sold 10 tons of lapidary rough. My friend had a claim and on my best day I brought in over a ton of rhodonite! One day I was getting an appraisal from a local jeweler on this load of turquoise I bought and he showed me a knife with natural turquoise scales... I asked him if he made it and he told me it was a kit knife. I then decided I wanted to make knives from scratch to add stone scales and now I make knives!

The ring looks nice! That might be a tough project setting stones that small right off the bat.

You could hacksaw her name into it, lmao! I had a ring made that way in Mexico and it was awesome watching it come to life. OK not with this one though!

I like the wire inlay idea, sounds classy.
 
Cool, thanx Daniel! I left the ring work hardened around the band, but the top can still be worked a little bit. Since there is no easy way harden (or possible) .999 fine silver when done.

I was thinking a simple copper stripe down the middle of the top just for some color, or with some practice a small cross hatch or basket weave pattern, but that's pushing the limits of scale I work in! I do a lot of very small things, but working with .020 wire pieces 2mm long is difficult!

You know, I have seen the dino bone menuki you have done on a knife, but have yet to see a stone scaled one from you! What are your thoughts about me cutting down the height of the top? She has small hands and I feel it might be just too tall, it looks a little out of proportion to me.


-X
 
fast14riot said:
Cool, thanx Daniel! I left the ring work hardened around the band, but the top can still be worked a little bit. Since there is no easy way harden (or possible) .999 fine silver when done.

I was thinking a simple copper stripe down the middle of the top just for some color, or with some practice a small cross hatch or basket weave pattern, but that's pushing the limits of scale I work in! I do a lot of very small things, but working with .020 wire pieces 2mm long is difficult!

You know, I have seen the dino bone menuki you have done on a knife, but have yet to see a stone scaled one from you! What are your thoughts about me cutting down the height of the top? She has small hands and I feel it might be just too tall, it looks a little out of proportion to me.


-X
Click to expand...



The inlay sounds good, tough but cool.... File or saw work would be nice also. I would take the top down.

I do need to do a stone scaled knife! Larger stone scales are hard to find but I do have some. Some of my rough was used in knives too, I traded some for a dino bone Case Trapper. Heck I need to go find it! lol My neighbor made a 5160 Bowie with marble I cut inlayed in the handle too...

I have some Black Jade and Dino Bone my friend cut into slabs for scales, I need to do it! I had a legal edc planned with black jade/mokume but I did the pins wrong and kept it as a template. I should try again!

edit - that ring style with the top cut down a bit was very popular for us as a plain ring...

This reminds me, in St.Thomas we used to sell tourists jewelry and we would take bets on the most silly thing we could pull off. People would ask us the craziest things; the most common being "do you live here" in which I would reply, "no, I just flew in from Florida this morning." Funny enough most people just believed me, lol St.T is too crazy to actually live there! My buddy had a good one, he sold a $5 toe ring and told the lady "this was on the cover of toe ring monthly"... I always thought that was a good one. I think she bought 5.
 
Last edited:
Ok, wire inlay is a royal PITA! I've had too much caffeine today to do real delicate work, but it is something I want to try out for sure. I need to find th right guage wire, too. Maybe I will just clean it up a bit first.


-X
 
tough? just cut the channel and set the wire in! It's just like landing a plane, hit the air brakes or whatever and point it down... simple!

:D

OK just kidding! I hope it all goes well.
 
Ok, so bein too jittery to reasonably work on the silver ring, I started a second one in bronze. This is just a plain band, just to practice more or less.

2013-05-03130109_zpsab3ff2c3.jpg



-X
 
TOE RING MONTHLY!!! LOL , I think I have that issue!!!!! haha.
Xander, Ok you need to show me how to do that! You are to good at that to have just started!
 
The bronze one was simple, drill a big hole and grind down the outside, that simple. Bronze is nowhere near as ductile as silver or copper or gold, so it more or less has to be "machined" or cast. Get a chunk of something and try it out.


-X
 
flatblackcapo said:
TOE RING MONTHLY!!! LOL , I think I have that issue!!!!! haha.
Xander, Ok you need to show me how to do that! You are to good at that to have just started!
Click to expand...

:D Glad you caught that!

The best one I got here was "at what elevation do deer turn into elk?" we used to get that a lot!

There are several rivers in nearby Durango, another big one is people will ask if the river is real and if it goes in a circle around town? Are the whitewater boats on tracks? that was a good one I heard a ton too! It is kind of like Disney land in downtown Durango though....

I have a lot of funny stories about tourists...

Once my friend's La Plata canyon tour truck broke down and he had to go to town a few miles away to ask for help. He told the people in the truck to start a fire if they got cold and gave them a lighter.... came back to a small fire in his truck! He told me next time he would specify outdoors for the fire!
 
Starting a fire in the truck is great, good thing it wasn't hot, they would have taken the door so they could roll down the window!

...Drunk...........I like beer........


Ok, here is the bronze ring all polished up. My fingers hurt. Holding this thing while hand buffing all the way from 400# to 12K micro mesh is killing me. It sized up at just between 4.5 and 4.75. Did I mention that Brandi is a rare and exquisite miniature?! She says she wants to be 5' tall when she grows up. I told her that once she turns 30 in a couple months its all downhill from there. <burp>

Oh yeah, the ring. It fits her well. She likes it. Shined up nicely. Still haven't told her about the silver one, I might end up doing some file work on the top, or maybe just leave it plain. I still need to talk to a jeweler, but I learned long ago not to do that drunk, it's expensive.

2013-05-03160957_zps9c87dfe0.jpg


Found out that my DFK spike is a great burnisher. Props homie.

/drunk.

-Xanderrrr
 
I thought that might have been a burnishing tool in the one pic, lol! cool

Dude! I'm very impressed with the ring. I keep saying I will do one stock removal style, I need some bigger drill bits and it's on! I'd be happy to make one half that nice.


Back at the kiln here... Lord have mercy, boyeeeee!!!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top