Thanks guys I appreciate the comments, I'm glad you are enjoying the thread. Here is today's progress.
Today was mostly about the sheath but I also wanted to finish darkening the background of the carving with the charcoal and oil mixture I talked about earlier. It wasn't getting the results I wanted (I believe because the ivory is so dense or the charcoal powder wasn't fine enough) so I opted for a leather dye and this worked very well.
Then I had to practice stone setting. The plan is to place some blood red T-rex shin bone as the broach for the sheath. This is my first setting and I'll admit I messed this one up royally, thankfully I had multiple pieces of bone but here is the basic process:
First measure your bezel wire and bend to shape around your stone.
Then solder it to the back plate:
You then have to form the bezel wire over the stone to hold it in place. At this stage it became a wrinkled mess and I ended up cracking the stone by pushing the silver to far. So I opted for another piece of bone and changed the back plate and bezel finish to match the character of the knife more.
Then it was on to the leather work, now I am no Paul long, but my sheathes are slowly getting up to a higher standard. Leather work certainly does not come naturally to me and I have to think really hard about it so don't take my method for anything but my method.
First after tracing the blade and establishing a border I cut out the top piece of leather.
Then I lay out the grooves for the overlay and the border for the silver broach.
Then I shade the borders to create depth.
Next I cut the top over lay:
Then I texture the area behind the broach.
Next to lay out the lower overlay and more shading.
Then cutting the lower overlay.
And then finishing the shading.
Next I lay out the lines for the quilt pattern.
Then I place the buttons:
Next I stain:
Then I set the silver broach with copper rivets.
And that is it for tonight, more to come tomorrow.
-Robert