Malucan Dagger in progress

Bailey Bradshaw

Bailey Bradshaw

Joined
Sep 13, 2001
Messages
816
This is an order dagger, but is special, so I thought I would do the in progress thing.

The blade is forged from W-2, is 8" long and will sport a hamon when polished. The guard and handle are mild steel. The guard is press fit, and the handle is a frame constructed of four pieces ( two pieces for the center, and two "slabs"), arc welded together and ground smooth. The inlays will be gold lip pearl.

The engraving will be carved scroll work with lots of gold inlays and a Malucan parrot on either front bolster. The parrots will be carved from silver. I will hot gun blue the handle and guard, then French grey the scrollwork.

The first picture is of the dagger after rough grinding the blade, contouring and fitting the guard and handle with the inlay pockets milled out.

DSCF0152.jpg


The afternoon was spent carving and rough polishing one side of the guard. The gold inlays will be raised, so they go in last before the blueing. I will French grey the leaves in the center.

DSCF0154.jpg


If anyone is wondering what the gray stuff is, it is Thermolock from GRS. Heat it in the microwave and it becomes plastic. Once it cools and hardens, it is a second to none fixture, and works great for protecting the tips of your knives when shipping too. HUGE time saver for engraving fixturing.

More to come tomorrow....
 
"Must watch" kind of project.....and
thanks for the info on Thermolock.
 
I'll be staying tuned to this channel - looks to be very special indeed.

Roger
 
You can reheat the thermaolock. I have only purchased one kit and have enough to use half of it at the shop and half at home for engraving fixtures. You can heat it in water too. I have had it mold around parts and couldn't pull them loose. Can't put metal in the microwave, so I just heat some water and soften it up.

Here is the sketch I have made for this one. The handle at the left is the final shape. I am going with American style scroll based on plates I have seen of L.D. Nimshcke. I am one of those people who are rarely satisfied with my own work, and this piece will be an exercise to increase the quality of my scrollwork. Nimschke's scrolls were not always overly fancy, but they are VERY high quality, and part of the reason is the layout.

anyway, here is the sketch

Malucandaggersketch.jpg
 
Bailey,
What a beautiful project.
I expect it would be an education just to see pages from your sketchbook.
John
 
I'm imagining the collector explaining this breathtaking purchase to his significant other: "He made a more expensive dagger, too, but I saved money going with the budgie model."

Must duck and cover and continue to enjoy seeing Bailey's work.
 
Got a decent amount completed today. I carved and polished the second side of the guard, finished the sketches for the engraving pattern and cut the scrolls on the rear of the handle, one side anyway. I decided to concentrate on the engraving progress a little more than usual. So, First thing was to smear on some Chinese white and pencil in the scrolls. I do this just by eyeing the sketch, and since I drew it once...

DSCF0157.jpg


Next is to take a scribe and go over the pencil lines so I don't loose the pattern while cutting it.

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Cut over the scribed lines.....

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Now I need to transfer the mirror image of the scrolls to the other side of the handle. I rub graphite from a pencil into the cuts and lift it off with clear tape. I take another piece of tape and put it sticky side together to transfer the graphite lines in a mirror image. If the handle was polished, I could rub engravers wax on the metal and lay the tape where I want the scroll oriented and burnish the graphite into the wax. I find it a spotty method, so I just lay the tape where I want the scrolls and scribe through the tape.

DSCF0160.jpg


And then cut the mirror image

DSCF0161.jpg


From here I will do more layout of the borders, cut the lines where the raised gold inlays will be and then remove the background. It's engravers grunt work, but if done well, it's makes the engraving stand out so much better. This piece has a lot of it to do.
 
Bailey Bradshaw said:
So, First thing was to smear on some Chinese white and pencil in the scrolls. I do this just by eyeing the sketch, and since I drew it once...
Click to expand...

Ha! I WISH it were that easy. I got to try my hand at engraving at Dan Farr's shop, and I am here to tell all who don't possess Bailey's substantial skill set that sketching a pattern on paper and engraving that pattern on steel are nowhere near comparable on the difficulty scale.

Cool thread Bailey - and terrific work as always.

Roger
 
I'm really curious about the endresult. All in all a very promising start:thumbup::thumbup:

I wondered how they mirrored an engraving and now I know (at least one method).:cool:

Marcel
 
The tape trick isn't the only way of course. Another method is to tape a piece of acetate over the engraving, or you can even start by taping over the sketch. Use a scribe to scratch over the lines, rub graphite over the scratches and lift them off with tape. To mirror the image, just flip over the acetate and do the other side.

Go to Sam Alfano's website, www.masterengraver.com . He has a tip and tricks section that has tons of stuff. Sam is one of the top five IMHO, and was my instructor. I plan to go back for a week long one on one session he offers. There are a couple of hurdles that I can't seem to overcome on my own.

The end vision for this piece is a very visual experience in both color and texture. The customer isn't fond of damascus or I would have done the blade in a high layer count billet to get a lot of shimmer. Anyway, the blued handle with raised gold inlays, French greyed carved scrolls and the gold lip pearl inlays that will actually be left slightly high and bull nosed around the edge should provide a lot of textural effect.

The subject of the whole project is a now deceased malucan parrot. I had a parrot for a while and can tell you they are loaded with personality and really do become part of the family. When I recall my bird, the texture and color of his feathers are what dominate the image, so I thought it would be more believable with that element over the whole handle.
 
A great start to what's going to be a very interesting knife!
Thanks for posting.
I'll certainly be 'all eyes'!
John
 
ignore Bailey, ignore, ignore, ignore, says my wallet:eek:
:thumbup:
I need to put you on my ignore list so I loose all temptation :D
 
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