Jerry Fisk 17 in. Artifact handle, 24 ct. gold, case hardened steel.

HTMD

HTMD

Joined
Feb 15, 2002
Messages
1,705
Another nice one by Jerry for the lucky micro show crowd. This bad boy has some reach with an OAL of almost 17 in. Blade is 12 1/4 in. - light and fast in hand.
Per Jerry:
This is for the micro show. The guard assembly is color case hardened...tricky to catch what colors are there.
24kt gold.
The handle is artifact Walrus tusk with a fire starter in the off side.
The blade has wolf tooth pattern on the bottom and chevron or arrows on the top. One side the arrows point to the tip and the other side they point to the handle. My humor towards a push pull effect.


orig.jpg



I'd not photographed case hardened steel before and I learned something. Case hardening means selectively heating (therefore hardening) the outer area of the steel while leaving the inner steel in its softer state - like with a torch or one of the other common methods. This results in color variations that can be subtle and cloud-like or high contrast and bold. It's used more commonly in custom/customized firearms. Most of the photos I found on the web were terrible and proved there's gotta be a trick or something to bring out the colors - a trick that nobody knows. But I had a thought and wondered if shooting the knife in natural sunlight - outdoors - would make a difference. It did. The image below is the result of that experiment. It is strictly a 'B-roll' shot while the one above is 'official.'


orig.jpg



This sunlight thing is not earthshaking news by any stretch - but cool to know if you're into photography. In this case the sunlight was strong, direct and unfiltered. An adjustable polarizing filter eliminated the blown out reflections from the shiny finish on the ancient tusk. Natural sunlight imparts a certain quality that is hard to define but real.
 
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Very attractive photo... I like the dark background, lighting against the Damascus and case hardened
steel....beautiful work on all levels...
 
Buddy,

Those are 2 great photos of an outstanding knife.

Good job by you and Jerry.
 
Long and lean - I like it a bunch. Thanks for the great look at this Buddy!
 
Thanks guys.
The blade is out front on this one for sure. I like knives like this (and makers like Jerry) because they are blade-centric, my shorthand for built around the blade - recognizing the blade's primacy.
Of course Jerry did a nice job all the way around this project. It's a very nice combination of lines, patterns, colors, embellishment and historical interest. The gold work is very strong and makes a statement.
Certainly worthy of the National Living Treasure/NLT mark.
 
Addendum:
HTMD said:
Natural sunlight imparts a certain quality that is hard to define but real.
Click to expand...
Just remembered that there is a term for it - luminous, luminosity. It's that quality, subtle as it is, which is visible here.
 
The knife design is very effective as each one of MS Fisk!
I have a question about the color case hardening technique; is that splotcy look inavoidable with such technique? Not that the effect is not appreciated, to be clear, and in this particular situation it's very nice as mirrors the ivory variations....but is a solid coloring technically obtainable?
 
Buddy, thank you for the great photo. I know that had to have been hard to catch the colors.

Stezann, those colors are desired and sought after on this knife. Doing a regular bluing one color is more simple and much lower heat. This is done at about 1400 F where regular caustic bluing is done at about 320 F, so yes, the solid color is very attainable. Thank you for the kind words.
 
Thank you, i agree that in this case the color effect suits very nicely the handle scales for an amazing, lively effect (i also love the ancient fire starting impression left on the scale).
 
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