Critique Request Knife scroll

[scroughstock]

Hey All,
This is a small Gerber that I am playing with. The plan is to do a copper overlay on the face of the knife. I plan to pierce cut the initials, scroll and border all from the same piece of copper and solder it on. Once I get it on the knife I will go back and add the shading lines to the scroll.

All comments, crtiques, ideas and suggestions are appreciated. I apologize for the drawing quality. I tried to color the background and lost a lot of the detail on the leaf tips.

Thanks,
Shane

 

[KSnyder]

copper is pretty soft , won't last long on a pocket knife if its used. instead of piercing why not just cut the design & background punch it or some other treatment? Try not to bite off more than you can chew so to speak.

 

[monk]

you may run into trouble attempting to solder copper to that knife if it's stainless. tix solder may work, as it's lowflow temp. it's available at micromark.com.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Why a copper overlay soldered on?

Why not a copper inlay flush into the steel ??

Cheers
Andrew

 

[ETHELBERT]

I would go with your plans, keeping in mind that no matter what we do we must remember and learn, it may be the right thing for you to do on this knife or it may not. Either way you will learn from your experience. Good Luck Ethelbert

 

[scroughstock]

KSnyder,
I thought about doing something like you suggested, but I decided I wanted a little more depth and some color.

The reason for choosing copper is that it's inexpensive, I have plenty laying around, and I like it. The knife will probably not get a lot of use, so I'm not worried about it getting worn.

Monk,
Thanks for the solder tip.

Andrew,
The reason for a copper overlay is that I like the spth that it create. My overlay material will be a 16 guage. That is a quite deep material. Also, I can guarantee that ny engraving skill are not up to par ebough for an inlay. I will be able to add the shading lines though. That is the reason for the wanting to do an over lay.

Ethelbert,
Thanks for the support.

I would like to know what people think of the scroll design in terms of things like balance and flow. I know the shape is a little shaky because of the elbows created by coloring the background. Before I did that it looked better to me. Maybe I should redraw it tonight.

Sounds funny, but I bet that it would take a full night for me to completely redraw it. One of these days I'll learn how to draw.

 

[Haraga.com]

Tin the sheet of copper with solder before you cut out the design. 16 ga is too thick. Use 20 ga. max.