In need of ideas...

[dirtyphil]

Spent yesterday and a little of today gluing up scales. I had 3 12x12 sheets each of black g10 in 1/8” & 1/4”. First thing I did was glue the spacers I had to them; black and hunter orange, black and toxic green, black blue and white, etc. Then with all the left over odd shapes I glued to some wood and g10 I had...

Then I worked on multi colored scales...they’re rough but flat, and fit the blanks, which I’m still working on.

 

[FredyCro]

Being a complete noob regarding knife making, this thread for me makes no sense. It's what one/ a knife maker should know himself.
Do you like blondes or darks?
Colors and design inspiration can be found outside of the knife making world. If someone tells you what you should do (at least regarding material/ color choice), it's like taking away a part of your (only) creative process.
Please don't take me wrong, I just want to say it is one of the the things that can distinguish you from the others and should IMHO be personal..

 

[dirtyphil]

Not asking anyone to tell me what to do...looking for ideas/inspiration. Why is this section of the site even here then?

 

[Randydb]

Not asking anyone to tell me what to do...looking for ideas/inspiration. Why is this section of the site even here then?

Yep, I'm constantly looking at things and looking for ideas. Every so often there is one of those "Wow" moments and then I take that idea, combine it with other ideas and make it my own. Inspiration.

About 1980 I hung around with a fellow who was in a small time band. He had a buddy named Bryan who spent a ton of time at the library listening to records and recording bits and pieces that caught his ear on a cassette recorer. Then Bryan would go home and learn these pieces and then make up his own pieces that were inspired by the recordings he had. It was funny because we thought Bryan was a bit of geek and not too cool. Certainly not original...a few years later Bryan Adams was releasing "Cuts like a Knife" and selling millions of albums. He did a lot of being inspired by other people's work. Meanwhile I was making $4.50/hr installing burglar alarms...not so inspired.

OP you say you are saving your burl for a piece of art but you aren't there yet. I gotta say your work is looking rather awesome and artistic right now. I would like you to break out the burl because I think whatever you come up with will be pretty amazing.

 

[Randydb]

One other thought. I've only designed two knives on my own so far. But both of them were inspired by what I saw and liked in other knives. The sweep of the back of the handle, the overall arch of the spine, the tilt of the plunge line, the shape of the blade and the shape of the handle all were bits and pieces of other knives, but put together in my own way.

 

[Hengelo_77]

A knife is a sharp piece of steel attached to a handle and that has been done before.
Everything has been done before. You can make something your disign by combining features in a way that you like.
And you don't need to be original.
You can take a classic disign, and make it as often as you like. There is a reason it became a classic

 

[dirtyphil]

So I am putting together these handles tomorrow. The left one will have a white liner and I’m still deciding on the one with turquoise. Up in the corner is a kirinite handled one I made for a friends son...wish I would have put a liner on it.

 

[Randydb]

Question, is the turquoise stabilized in some way? I'm just wondering if there is a "brittle" factor with it or if turquoise is fairly resilient. I use small tiny pieces of crushed turquoise when I make flutes but not big pieces like you have there.

 

[FredyCro]

These look awesome and unique. My point was solely that you don't need others to tell you what looks good or not or what your style is. The ideas are out there (in the "world wide web"), how you interprete them and figure out what you do with them, is up to you. Looking foward to the finished knives!