Blue Inlay?

[Brian Hochstrat]

While surfing the knife galleries the other day, I seen a knife which had a blade that was blue, however, what was very interesting was the inlaid border around the engraving was also blue, I am very curious to how that was achieved, it looked very cool. One other question, while I have you knife guys on here, how hard is it to remove scales from a knife, without destroying them, I have a knife with mother of pearl scales, I am not sure what is holding them, an adhesive I would asume, there are no pins. It would be nice to get them off, so as to not accidently damage them. Is that possible? Thanks, Brian

 

[Ken Hurst]

Brian, It could be alum. wire that has been annodized. Ken

 

[ChrisB]

Brian, The Blueing Could have been Done By Either Gun Blue or Just Plain Heat Bluing, on the Blade, The Inlay Could be Titanium Wire,?? That Would make It The Same Color, Titanium can be Colored in Various Colors of Blue, Depending on the System Used,!! Steel will be a Darker Color as TiTanium at the Same Temp, Or Voltage.

ChrisB

 

[Jeffrey Parry]

I'm aware that nitre blue can turn some wonderful contrasting shades of blue on a piece of damascus. That said, I would presume it would similarly turn various inlayed materials yet another shade. I'm very interested in this process. If you give it a try please let me know how it comes out!

 

[ron p. nott]

Brian .. the other thing this could be is iron wire inlays into 416 SS. bolsters , the inlays are then cold blued while the SS will not blue .. ron p.

 

[Ray Cover]

Brian,


DO NOT TOUCH THE SCALES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I have your attention.

THe best thing you can do with those pearl scales is cover them with heavy book or storage tape. Here is how I do it.

I use heavy Scotch brand 3650 series Storage tape I buy at walmart (bet you all thought I was going to say ebay didn't ya ) . This is a very heavy strong tape that does a good job protecting what is under it.

Lay a piece on the pearl that completely covers it. Then take an exacto knife and cut through the tape right on the glue line between the pearl and the surrounding metal. Only cut deep enough to go through the tape you don't want to leave a secondary border around the pearl. Then you can peel the tape off the metal that is to be engraved.

This protects the pearl in two ways.
1. It helps keep any impact from doing gold inlay or heavy cutting from causing a crack. It kind of the same principle that makes a full sealed glass bottle harder to break than an empty bottle.

2. This heavy tape does a great job keeping chips from scratching the pearl.

Anything you try to do to take the pearl off will surely damage it a lot more than engraving the knife with it on will. If it was screwed on and you could just take the screws out and lift the pearl off it would be different. When the pearl is pinned or glued you WILL crack it trying to get it off.

Ray

 

[Brian Hochstrat]

Ray, this is an old thread, Dwight Towell showed me how the scales go in and the only way they come out is in pieces. So I have been using the tape to protect stuff.

 

[Ray Cover]

OK I feel stupid now.

Sorry guys

Ray

 

[KCSteve]

S'ok - some of us are new here and good advice is still good advice whether it's on time or not.

 

[monk]

mop is very brittle stuff. the tiniest bit of flexing that stuff gets and it wants to go south right away. it has no respect for engravers.

 

[Steve223]

Brian i was brouseing around your web site,Very nice, Besides your engraving you build some sure enough punchey lookin kacks and your bits and spurs arent to shabby either.
Steve

 

[Brian Marshall]

Brian, you never said whether you discovered a method, technique, or the material used for this blue inlay? I realize this is an old thread - but inquiring minds wanna know what you found!

The "other" Brian

 

[Brian Hochstrat]

Steve, Katherine Plumer, who just recently joined us here on the Cafe, built my website a few years ago, its under reconstruction, but will be completed as soon as I send her more photos. Thanks for giving it a look.


other Brian, as much as I hate to admit it, I think I was fooled by photo editing, I have checked the website quite a few times since and there are knives on there with blue blades that I am sure are stainless. So I am pretty sure the blue inlay was actually silver in color. On a positive note, guys came up with some great ideas for doing a blue inlay. other other Brian