steve ram lake knife

[ghost]

steve
on your ram knife
how did you get the blackground that black
thanks jay

[Steve Lindsay]

Hi Jay, The background on the piece was cut out with a dental air drill and stippled. The color is flat black lacquer from Gesswein called "Background Antique" Link The lighting in the picture is the key to having the background and cuts be full black. All the lights were shut off in the room except for a lite sheet above the knife. The idea is to have no stray direct light coming in to light the background or cuts. Steve

[ghost]

steve you stippled it with dental bit also
what kind of bit is that
thanks jay

[Steve Lindsay]

Cleaning up the corners in background and stippling of background can be done in the same operation by grinding a dental bur down to a point on a diamond lap. With the burr in the rotary tool, hold it against a turning diamond lap and step on the rotary foot pedal. This will quickly grind the burr to a point. Depending on what is needed, grind it to a narrow or thicker point. Next, hold one finger on the burr so it can not spin and grind a couple of flats at random on the point. Try cutting with it and if it doesn't cut well, place another random flat on the point. Keep doing this until you hit a grind that cuts well. It may take three or four tries, but since the flats are random, it only takes a couple seconds to place another flat on. Most of the time, the shape that seems to cut best is similar to a very tiny flat-head screwdriver. Make them different sizes as needed,: a wider one for cleaning out corners and stippling background, and so forth., and a narrower one to deepen a line for wire inlay and for undercutting. After I clean out a corner of the background with the bur I'll back out of the corner making dots/marks with it. Similar motion to making dots with a pen or pencil. The background hard to get to spots can be cut out and the background stippled at the same time this way. I believe Jim Small is using the same method of grinding down burs to a smaller cutter too. It can make faster work of background and stippling. :thumbsup:

Steve