Yes. The trick is to get it all working right, so you don't have to start over with a new carving if your bronze freezes or has bubbles or didn't vent right... but that's how they did it 2,000 years ago, so that's the path I will go down myself.
You can always make a female mold in silicone or other rubber media in order to produce replicas of your original wax carving.
I'm concerned there are too many overhangs to make that work - but I could be wrong. The feathers have space under them, and that beak's passage would be difficult to deal with... but I may give it a try.
What is the knife in the background of this pic? I was given one just like it, even have the exact same sheath, but I have no way to identify either it or its job.
That'd be a Russell belt knife by Grohman knives of Pictou Nova Scotia Canada or maybe on of many copies.
back in the mid-seventies while living on the border of san fransisco's tenderloin district, i felt the need for a "partner". found a custom knife maker, sent them the outline of my hand and $42 and some time later a pretty solid knife arrived. a great knife, fits perfectly, handle/pins still tight. made by the Rigid Company (usa). a little googling revealed that the company founders had ties to Buck knives. anyhow ............ daily carry for years, camping duty, yadda. figured i might tackle the bolster and handle refinishing, but need a pro to address the blade with a re-grind and polish. anyone here care to give it a go?
While it may be too late for the project you were doing you could have made a rubber mold of that unless there was a lot of hidden detail in your pic.I made molds like that for the furniture industry primarily but we also did figurines and lamps that had that kind of detail for production.
I've made one RTV mold for it, with 90% success - I've poured new wax into it and got a good copy, but I failed to pull a vacuum, and got air bubbles near my work. Which translates to, when new wax is poured, it's the right shape, but as it shrinks while cooling, it's pulling those near-surface air bubbles into the shape, leaving dimples where I need a smooth surface. This only happens on the side that was "down" as the RTV was curing around the original wax, which I still have intact. I just need to build a curing chamber that can handle a vacuum, I have a hand pump that should work well enough, and I can make a bubble-free mold to work from - then it's miller time for that project.
I have an old knife/bayonet that was found buried about 15 years ago. Can anybody tell me anything about it???? Thanks
maybe this: Camillus Pilot Survival Knife http://www.knivesplus.com/CM-5733B-Camillus.HTML Popular in the Vietnam era. Don't know when they stopped making them. Camillus went out of business in 2007. Happy Thanksgiving.
That Camillus was just a K-Bar knockoff, and I loathe hollow handles - it puts far more strain on the blade/handle junction than you should have, and lots of them broke for that reason. As for the Opinel, I carry a medium standard blade as my regular pocketknife. Also shaving sharp, simple, elegant. I'm slowly doing Norse-style carving over the handle wood, to give it some character and grip. I have one ring of 3-strand knotwork already, near the bolster, and the rest is waiting for the muses to strike.
That pilot's knife would have a stacked leather handle. It's not hollow although the big pommel may make it look that way. I was selling new ones in the 90s. Not intending to discredit Smithy.