Fancy patterns onto blades

[Yeti of the North]

I'm not the smith, I'm the customer. Thing is, I'm the one that wants a custom design put onto some of the blades I have on order. Now I have some generic fancy blades from united and some other comercial grade companies and they have designed on the blades. My question is, "what is the best method to get an intricate, fancy design onto/into the blade?". Thank you for your assistance.

 

[Guy Thomas]

Yeti, you are probably looking at a process in which the blade is covered with a resist, then an artist/knifemaker carves a negative image of your design/artwork onto the resist exposing the steel in just those areas. Then the blade is placed into an etchant/acid of some variety which produces the image on the steel.
As with most things there are other ways which I'm sure will be posted here also!-Guy Thomas

 

[TJ Smith]

Engraving would also work. there has been a couple of articles i Blade Mag. on using a high speed mortorized engraver to do some real intricate work.
take care
TJ Smith

 

[R Dockrell]

The purests will hate this but you can also have the blade or handle lasser engraved.
very intricate and does not take the temper out of the blade.

------------------
Robert
Flat Land Knife Works
rdblad@telusplanet.net
http://members.tripod.com/knifeworks/index.html

 

[cjensema]

Originally posted by R Dockrell:
have the blade or handle lasser engraved. Very intricate and does not take the temper out of the blade.

Yup. Just takes the money out of your wallet.

 

[R Dockrell]

Not so!!!
About one tenth the price of having it tool engraved.
Any artwork that can be scanned or computor generated can be duplicated on steel at very reasonable prices. Look for small advertising specialty companys that do it. Most are run out of homes, like us makers.

------------------
Robert
Flat Land Knife Works
rdblad@telusplanet.net
http://members.tripod.com/knifeworks/index.html