My latest work

[mckeenh]

Here is a photo ( My poor Photography ) of my latest work, the blade is O1 tool steel, the liners are anodized titanium and the scales are 15N20 with copper inlay.






Neil:yesnod:

[SVD]

Very nice! :thumbsup:

What's the overall length of the knife? If that paper is the same one I have then that would make it pretty petite.

[mckeenh]

:yesnod: total length is 7 3/4 inches overall. It is meant to be a using knife with ornamentation. there is no nitre blue to wear off which is a rather fragile finish. It comes with a hand tooled sheath too.

Neil

[SVD]

That makes it just a bit bigger than life-size on my screen. The laynard hole size through me off. Without any reference size it could have been a hole for a jump ring (making the knife pendant sized).

Actual size is quite nice - big enough to hold on to, not so big it gets in the way. And for those who think it's too small for 'real' jobs a guy on the Benchmade forum once decided to see how much of the job of field dressing a six-piecing a deer he could do with a Benchmite's 1.7" blade. Turns out, all of it. Most of it was actually easier than with a larger blade. Removing the antlers he could have used a larger handle for more leverage.

How about a picture of the sheath too? I'm sure you made it to go with the knife which would mean it's pretty nice looking.

[mckeenh]

Now that I have figured out posting a picture I will get another one on here with a sheath to show the style of leather work. I may have a better picture of this one if I can edit it out and replace it.

Neil:yesnod:

[sddd42000]

wow
looks great
i am just starting and love it. still working on the outline aspect, but with time i will get to your level. i hope sooner than later.:smilie5:

[mckeenh]

I hope you get beyond my level of skill. I am still learning, and hope that I continue. It seems as you progress the learning curve increases so that you improve faster. The one thing that helped me was to study other engraving. If you take it too seriously you will be tempted to quit because you think you will never get there but keep at it and know that many of the people who's work you are looking at have been doing this for 30 or more years. I have only been at this for three years and expect that the next two years will show a big improvement. I was told early on that it takes seven years to make a good engraver. I still have four yet to go.

Good luck and hope this helps keep things in perspective.

Neil:yesnod:

[SVD]

Like you said Neil - just take it one line at a time.

I'm just coming up on my first year so I've got six more to go. For now I just try to make the line I'm working on the best I can. It's just like washing your hair - lather, rinse, repeat.

[mckeenh]

As you get better at cutting lines the cutting will become second nature, then the problem will be your art. As a result the art becomes the ever elusive quest that we all strive to master.

Neil:yesnod:

[WVEngraver]

Buddy ... you are well on your way!!!

This is a nice knife!! Great file work and great inlay work.

Concentrate on perfecting your scroll ... particularly the flat spots in the backbone. You'll have more space inside the scroll to execute the leaves when the backbone is smooth, round and full.

Great job!!

Chris

[mckeenh]

Thanks for the compliment. We all strive for perfection but it is slow in coming. Some of the scroll that seems flat is some kind of illusion. I don't know why it looks that way but it is not flat in reality.

Thanks again
Neil:yesnod:

[thinair33]

I can tell that some of the defects are image related. There is an entire pixel shift in the image. Great job on the knife. I think it is very unique.

[Steve Ellsworth]

Nice work.

Learn to tweak your photos to show off your work to it's maximum. It's worth the effort as most cameras default to some rather boring settings but there is always room to play and enhance the output.

[mckeenh]

I am sure you are right but I think this camera is smarter than I am. I got to the macro mode once and can't get back there again. Even with the manual. I will have to play with it some more and I think a darker back ground would have worked better. As with all things I hope to improve with time.

Neil:yesnod:

[SVD]

Neil

Look on your camera's controls for a little flower - that seems to be the standard icon for macro mode.

[mckeenh]

I have the flower and the button located but it doesn't do what it used to do. Originally a scale came up on the lcd that let me adjust for length of focus but it doesn't do it any more. Don't know why.

Neil:yesnod:

[SVD]

Check the 'mode' you have the camera in. That's probably on a dial of some sort. You want the 'green box / Auto / Idiot mode' setting. Or if you're in that mode, turn to a different one.

In other words, poke at it.

[Steve Ellsworth]

With your s3 you have to set the dial to P then push the flower button on the left side of the lens to get the scale and macro or super macro (hold longer for supermacro)

standard macro can be acquired from auto setting

it is interesting that when you zoom into the shot the curves iron out
i have never seen a camera do that before

considering you have a 12x optical zoom there is no reason for you to ever use macro on a knife that size unless you want to do closeups of certain areas like the file work -

i would suggest you take advantage of the zoom to see if you can eliminate the distortion - ie shoot the knife from 5 feet away

experiment a little

you have one very nice camera to work with
go to cannon's website and d/l the manuals and user guides they make it a lot easier to understand

go with the darker back ground but get/build some lighting equipment or learn to tone map your images

it's a hassle but learn to use photo soft ware to work with your images
better pictures mean better sales

do get some lights

the image was shot at F3.5 at 1/20 of a second
which means you are working in the dark relatively speaking
your camera wont perform well for product photography under those conditions

[mckeenh]

Wow! you could tell all of that from the photo? I am impressed. Thanks for all the info. I do use the software to enhance the photos when I can. I usually try auto enhance but that does not always do the trick. I need to use a different kind of light. My light box is next to a window so I get good light on a sunny day but when I try to use supplemental light on a dark day I seem to get some glare. Will work on that too.

Thanks
Neil:yesnod: