A little attempt at Tooling and color dying for a fillet knife. Knife is AEB-L 3/32" Ebony handle and a false edge on the back, makes for a stiff knife. Now I have to get onto the river and get some fish to test it on. Before final assembly
The blending started out wrong, did red first then green with a brush. Looked like turd so went back and did the red again which luckily worked. Have to try the next one with the airbrush since it should do a much better job of applying stains than a brush can. Need to get different background stamps the one I was using just did not work the way I wanted and maybe should have had a border separating the stamped area and the plain area. The stains are thinner or less bulky than the paint and should wear at the same rate as the black portion and you can pick up a box of 8 colors from Tandy. Nice and small but for sheaths should last a good while. Use a very fine brush to place lines or add in shadow, for this I used black to highlight the veins in the leaf. Added the last layer of black and buffed with a paper towel, this actually makes the sheath shine and spreads a little excess dye onto the leaf. The hardest part of blending multiple colors is not getting to much black or brown on the pattern when rubbing things down in the polish stage.
Nice save. The curiosity was I was advised to buy an airbrush setup to do fades and gradients with dyes on leather. For me, Q-tips or cotton balls are smooth enough. Yours looked special. I was wondering if it was 4:20. Dan
Special lmao nope just beginner level tooling Q-tips, only have a large box for cleaning knives. Never thought of using them
John, you really are multi-talented guy! Really nice tooling and dye job on the sheath. Knife is also very nice.
doing the next one in a couple of minutes. Fishing theme and monogrammed for a friends father as a gift from the grand kids. Find the hardest part is seeing the finished product before I start so I know what direction to head in.
