Outstanding Ray. I hope to see it at the engrave-in if it is not in the hands of a patron by then. I hope you get good pictures of it before it is out of your hands.
Ray, Fantastic work-I have a question about the knife mount. In the picture shown I do not see the shimming you described elsewhere to protect the integrity on the mechanics of the knife. Does this indicate that you set the gold then remounted without shims for the detail work. Thanks in advance for your participation in my quest for knowledge and skill. Fred
Boy I don't know Mike, It has taken me 20 years to produce a project like this.
We do work on these skills in that July class. You will learn to do the line and sheet inlay, we will refine your shading skills, and we will do some bulino. So you will be taught the How To but the going home and practicing to master it is always up to the student.
Jeff,
I do have a couple openings available in that July intermediate class.
Thanks to all for the kind words. I am going to try and have this one finished, a couple Don Cowles knives and a couple in progress projects for display at the Engrave In.
Hey Ray! Super overall design and flawless execution, as always! I've got a question for you. I've shied away from hot glue to mount anything that was not all metal. How do you safely remove the knife with scales mounted from hot glue? Do you just "pop it off" or do you use a heat source carefully?
What I do is cover the back side fot he knife with blue painters tape before I hot glue it down. That keeps the glue from getting up into the recesses of the stag. It also keeps the glue form pulling on any inlays that may already be on the glued side when it is removed from the block
TO release the hot glue I peel up an edge of the hot glue manually and squirt a little rubbing alcohol between the glue and the block. The alcohol will seep into the glue joint and loosen it. Then I carefully wedge a shim in the glue joint an pull it off.
Once the knife is off the block you can usually peel the glue off the knife fairly easily. You may need to apply a tiny bit of alcohol here and there if you have stubborn places.