Brian Hochstrat
Elite Cafe Member
Here are a few knives I have done in the last few months. The Iliad/Odyssey knife and the Loerchner will both be at Blade show. The Iliad/Odyssey knife is posted in another thread, but I figured I'd post it up here and talk about it a little.
This knife here is an Osborne, the design challenge with this style of knife is the long, very narrow areas along the handle inlay. As you can see I framed it with a large gold border, but then tapered the gold down to allow more room to get an interesting design in there, but it also accents the flowing curve already present in the knife.
This here is a Loerchner, all the carving was done by the maker, and the flat areas were left for me. With this knife, like the Osborne, I really wanted to accent the flow already present in the knife. So I did the large tapered gold areas to add some color separation and highlight the fluted areas carved by the maker. Also I elongated the ornamental work and tried to keep the design flowing with the rest of the knife. I had to walk a tight balance with the engraving design on this one, if my work was to bold the nice carved work would be overtaken, or if I went to subtle then the engraving would have been lost to the carving. Overall, I think the carving and engraving work well together.
This knife was a large project, but was an opportunity to take my engraving in the direction I want to go. I have been working towards doing more bulino engraving in just the steel being you can create more subtle tonal changes and a more believable rendering. Gold work certainly has it's place, like to accent something, or in this case for image separation, but I am trying to move away from having to use gold, just for the sake of using gold. This knife is an Italian made knife and so the design needed to have some Italian influence. Also the knife had some screws and a pivot disk that could not be inlayed with gold so I had create a design to address those areas. The theme is an idea I have had for some time now, but was awaiting the right knife to put it on. I really liked this knife being it had the area needed and the frame was perfectly flat. Bulino work will look bold under even light, the flat plane makes that easy to achieve, so the bulino work is easily seen on it in most lighting conditions.
Anyway, thanks all for taking a look. Best regards. Brian
This knife here is an Osborne, the design challenge with this style of knife is the long, very narrow areas along the handle inlay. As you can see I framed it with a large gold border, but then tapered the gold down to allow more room to get an interesting design in there, but it also accents the flowing curve already present in the knife.
This here is a Loerchner, all the carving was done by the maker, and the flat areas were left for me. With this knife, like the Osborne, I really wanted to accent the flow already present in the knife. So I did the large tapered gold areas to add some color separation and highlight the fluted areas carved by the maker. Also I elongated the ornamental work and tried to keep the design flowing with the rest of the knife. I had to walk a tight balance with the engraving design on this one, if my work was to bold the nice carved work would be overtaken, or if I went to subtle then the engraving would have been lost to the carving. Overall, I think the carving and engraving work well together.
This knife was a large project, but was an opportunity to take my engraving in the direction I want to go. I have been working towards doing more bulino engraving in just the steel being you can create more subtle tonal changes and a more believable rendering. Gold work certainly has it's place, like to accent something, or in this case for image separation, but I am trying to move away from having to use gold, just for the sake of using gold. This knife is an Italian made knife and so the design needed to have some Italian influence. Also the knife had some screws and a pivot disk that could not be inlayed with gold so I had create a design to address those areas. The theme is an idea I have had for some time now, but was awaiting the right knife to put it on. I really liked this knife being it had the area needed and the frame was perfectly flat. Bulino work will look bold under even light, the flat plane makes that easy to achieve, so the bulino work is easily seen on it in most lighting conditions.
Anyway, thanks all for taking a look. Best regards. Brian
WOW, wonderful work, Brian! 
