Mike Dubber
Elite Cafe Member
I have been working on a new project for the past months preparing for the FEGA Show in Las Vegas. My concentration has been on “Crazy Horse.” During summer travels we were in South Dakota where we visited the mountain statuary – Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. I had plenty of information about Crazy Horse when we returned, and I already had a Colt SAA underway with much of the routine engraving and border inlay finished. The grip fitting been completed months ago and the Colt was set up perfectly for Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was an excellent study, and all the time I spent engraving was matched by the hours I spent researching his character; developing ideas about the themes is a whole other story.
Always hoping to challenge myself with new engraving techniques and processes, I first decided to create a “screwless” panel on the right side…that being an open field for inlay work without those three mindless main frame screws protruding through the surface. Weldon Lister sent me a suggested method of removing those screw holes so I jumped in and did that first. I’ll only show the first step here and talk more about the Weldon’s method of “iron inlaying” in another discussion…as well as photos of the creature I decided to inlay in the expanded area.
The second most challenging thing I undertook was to inlay a piece gold in the Mother-of-Pearl grips. Although the Pearls were beautiful as they were, I needed one more theme inlay to complete my list for Crazy Horse. So, I thought, Barry Lee Hands does beautiful gold on pearl inlay all the time, why not jump in there and give it a try?
Crazy Horse was an elusive character – he never allowed himself to be photographed. Korczak Ziolkowski started the world’s largest sculpture on the South Dakota Mountain in 1948. Work is still underway today with only about 1/3 of the monument completed. So like Korczak, my cryptic vison of Crazy Horse is the same as others who have attempted to create his image.
Crazy Horse’s “Visons’ repeatedly included the Red Tail Hawk…and they also created a very private and unassuming individual in the man. Considered to be the most fearless of all the Lakota warriors, his battle dress included a simple Red Tail Hawk feather in his hair and a stone tied behind his ear. As in many previous battles, he painted a red lightning bolt on his cheek and led his warriors to the crest of a rise above the Little Big Horn and wiped out Custer and his contingent of the 7th Cavalry in about 8 minutes.
The Red Tail Hawk Portrait and the crimson bolt are shown here on the Pink Mother of Pearl Grips. I’ll talk about all of that more later on. Meanwhile; you can see this piece and many others like it that are beautifully Master Engraved at the 2018 FEGA Guild Show in Las Vegas.
Please come visit us there !
Always hoping to challenge myself with new engraving techniques and processes, I first decided to create a “screwless” panel on the right side…that being an open field for inlay work without those three mindless main frame screws protruding through the surface. Weldon Lister sent me a suggested method of removing those screw holes so I jumped in and did that first. I’ll only show the first step here and talk more about the Weldon’s method of “iron inlaying” in another discussion…as well as photos of the creature I decided to inlay in the expanded area.
The second most challenging thing I undertook was to inlay a piece gold in the Mother-of-Pearl grips. Although the Pearls were beautiful as they were, I needed one more theme inlay to complete my list for Crazy Horse. So, I thought, Barry Lee Hands does beautiful gold on pearl inlay all the time, why not jump in there and give it a try?
Crazy Horse was an elusive character – he never allowed himself to be photographed. Korczak Ziolkowski started the world’s largest sculpture on the South Dakota Mountain in 1948. Work is still underway today with only about 1/3 of the monument completed. So like Korczak, my cryptic vison of Crazy Horse is the same as others who have attempted to create his image.
Crazy Horse’s “Visons’ repeatedly included the Red Tail Hawk…and they also created a very private and unassuming individual in the man. Considered to be the most fearless of all the Lakota warriors, his battle dress included a simple Red Tail Hawk feather in his hair and a stone tied behind his ear. As in many previous battles, he painted a red lightning bolt on his cheek and led his warriors to the crest of a rise above the Little Big Horn and wiped out Custer and his contingent of the 7th Cavalry in about 8 minutes.
The Red Tail Hawk Portrait and the crimson bolt are shown here on the Pink Mother of Pearl Grips. I’ll talk about all of that more later on. Meanwhile; you can see this piece and many others like it that are beautifully Master Engraved at the 2018 FEGA Guild Show in Las Vegas.
Please come visit us there !
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