The new "Gilded Pearl" technique by Barry Lee Hands

Sam

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Maybe we should have a gold inlay into mother of pearl contest and see what the Cafe R&D geeks can come up with.
 

Barry Lee Hands

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Sure Sam, why not?

Here's a hint .... the sticks in hand held fans and antique oriental chop sticks. Both have exhibited gold inlay in ivory that I am certain of.

Chris

Thanks again Chris,
Nothing is new under the sun, just new to me, hehe.
As you know there are many examples of inlayed wood, ivory and pearl.
My friend David Trevallion remembers that Ken Hunt was inlaying gold initials in pearl grips on colts in the '60's
As far as current work, Harumi Hirayama springs to mind with her fabulous inlays of stone, metals, and pearl, into pearl on her own knifework.
Whats new about this, to me, besides my original technique, is the application, that is gold stems in leaves in, for want of a simpler classification, in "Neo-american arabesque" style, as used in knifework, and gunwork in the last thirty years or so.
And its application in an american made custom knife such as this S.R. Johnson.
Although this technique is my own, I am sure others have found the same methods in the past.

 
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Christopher Malouf

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New or old really makes no difference Barry. You are indeed ahead of your time and all the rest of us can do is follow.


----

"R&D Geek" ... that's me Sam. If 99% of the business wasn't dedicated to on-the-fly R&D, I'd still be screwing around with practice plates :)
 
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rod

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Quote...from Barry

Thanks Rod,
In regards to Jung, I believe his ideas on the individuation of the personality,that is, self fulfillment by individualization outside the collective personality to fulfill ones potential, is an excellent parallel to the fulfillment of ones artistic personality in relation to the "structure" of the Arts in which we all work, which we as engravers may refer to as developing ones own personal style, or as an artist, "listening to ones own muse"?

Barry,

You cast your net widely in far off lands, cultures, and other ages ( and you also write well), taking inspiration, yet making each new piece your very own. Studying your many generous tutorials, it seems that your layouts are often skeletal, then you jump right in, appearing to be quite at home on thin ice. Its as though you have an ability to be out ahead of the train, laying new track. I like that.

We need more time to dig deeper into Jung and maybe Bastian, perhaps around a campfire next time I am in Montana.

best

Rod
 

Mike Cirelli

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Very nice Barry. It looks like you did it perfect the first time as you say it needs to be done. That seems like it would take nerves of steel and a nice quiet shop:) Looks beautiful.
 

Steve223

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Beautiful Work Barry!!
Between this and Phils Nelson gun i am astonshied!! ,inspired!!! and feel totaly inadaquit LOL
Steve
 
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John B.

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Hi Barry,
Thank you for a very interesting article and pictures of your gold inlay into both the bolsters and pearl handle of the wonderful knife.
A beautiful knife to begin with and you have turned it into a treasure.

I would like to ask a couple of questions if you don’t mind.
Not about the pearl, I understand your students concern about that subject.

In the picture sequence of the bolsters #10 says”Gold sanded.”
The gold appears to be sanded flush with the surrounding metal prior to background relief.
#11 says “Relieved, stippled, sculpted and shaded.”
My questions are these.
Am I correct that the gold tendrils and leaves were first sanded flush?
Am I correct in thinking that the flush leaves are sculpted by cutting or punching?
And then shaded to enhance the sculpture?
If this is correct, about how deep did you make the cavity for the gold?
And what would you estimate the maximum depth of your sculpting of the gold?

Thank you for answering any of my questions on this interesting project.
Best regards.
 

Barry Lee Hands

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Thanks Chris. . Rod, and Phil, and Mike, Dwayne and steve.
Hi Barry,

In the picture sequence of the bolsters #10 says”Gold sanded.”
The gold appears to be sanded flush with the surrounding metal prior to background relief.
#11 says “Relieved, stippled, sculpted and shaded.”
My questions are these.
Am I correct that the gold tendrils and leaves were first sanded flush?
Am I correct in thinking that the flush leaves are sculpted by cutting or punching?
And then shaded to enhance the sculpture?
If this is correct, about how deep did you make the cavity for the gold?
And what would you estimate the maximum depth of your sculpting of the gold?

Thank you for answering any of my questions on this interesting project.
Best regards.

John B. , my old buddy,Thanks for asking.
The leaves and stems were sanded flush.
Yes, you are correct, the flush leaves were relieved, and then sculpted by cutting and punching.
Then once again, you guessed right, they are shaded, this covers up the difficult spots at the vanishing points.
On this , the cavity is maybe .004 inch at the most, and the gold sheet is maybe .008, If I remember correctly.
In any case, I would leave about .004 proud after the relief, and the sculpting might remove .002 or .003.
Kisses,
 
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John B.

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Thank you very much, Barry.
That clears up my, and maybe some other peoples questions.
The sculpted, shaded flush gold inlay combined with the pearl inlay really turned this beautiful knife into a show stopper.
Best.
 

Scratchmo

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This really is nice and something you don't see everyday. Beautiful design as well. I used to do a lot of pearl work back in the dark ages when I was building banjos, but all that stuff was just epoxied into place. I really don't think this is set with epoxy.

I don't think this this could be done using regular gold inlay techniques we are all familiar with. Pearl is just too brittle. The only way I can think of to accomplish this is to pierce all the way through the pearl with a jeweler's saw, tilting the blade to make the underside of the cut wider and lay the gold in from the back side. I'm probably off base, but I think it could be done that way.
 

Sam

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I'm guessing some sort of adhesive. While not impossible, a purely mechanical hold seems pretty risky due to the brittleness of pearl, but I've not tried it.
 

Kevin P.

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All this discussion of the material and technique reminded of a silver buckle inlayed with sugilite and abalone shell that I did. Please understand that I'm not comparing this piece with Barry's work.
All of the stone work and shell work was done by hand with normal lapidary tools. There is inlay between the pieces of sugalite that are about 0.5 mm.
Kevin P.
 
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Kevin P.

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I should have been more specific in this buckle post.
I have used abalone shell in a number of projects and found no brittleness. The techniques that Barry may have used are not that exotic. Diamond tools will work for all the necessary tasks to accomplish what Barry has on this knife.
The other necessary ingredient is his extraordinary talent.
Kevin P.
 
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