Vargas girl knife for Blade

[Brian Hochstrat]

Here is one that is going to Blade show. It is a Matt Lerch with reproductions of early Vargas girls. The frame and blade is etched stainless damascus, all the colors are inlays of various gold alloys with the exception of the gray fluff on the pink dress which is palladium and the girls' hair which is shakudo.


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[graniteguy52]

Brian,

Gorgeous scroll work! And the girls are nice too!

Gordon

[Titian]

Incredible Work.

I love it.

[Jroettger]

Great work.

[Lucie Bandikova]

That is beautuful, good luck at the show.

[chickenscratcher]

Really wonderful work. Was there a specific karat minimum content for the gold or was color the only consideration. You pulled this off. CONGRADS.....chickenscratcher

[gravalance]

Wow, gorgeous work indeed!
Especially like how the inlaid scrolls fit to the damast-pattern in the background,
really tasteful job!!

[Brian Hochstrat]

Yes I do try and keep all the karated gold above 14k so they remain resistant to tarnish. I dislike inlaying metals that tarnish, but I have not yet found a gold alloy to achieve brown or coppery red, so I was forced to do a patina on shakudo.

This knife was kind of built around my engraving design, so the damascus was specially chosen to work well with the ornamental design, we decided, however, the damascus would be distracting as a background for the girls, so a piece of 416 was inlaid into the frame to give a more subtle background.

Thanks all for the kind words. B.