MIMF

I am nearly finished building an aztec themed solid body electric guitar for my 11 yr old granddaughter. It will have one volume knob and I would love to make an oversized volume knob of the attached Aztec stone head. This will be done either by wood sculpting or casting. I have no experience and looking for suggestions? So if you suggest carving hopefully you will suggest wood that is good to carve or if you suggest casting, to suggest materials and processes. I wonder if 3d printing would work? Thanks for any help.

I thought it was the Olmec's who made those heads. If you want to make one out of either wood or casting, you'll have to likely carve one first either way, so if it were me I'd probably just go ahead and carve one out of wood. I think bass wood is a common carving wood though I've never used it. I know it's available in small blanks from specialty wood stores and is supposedly easy to carve and very stable.

You could sculpt one out of Fimo or Sculpy in the color of your choice for a one off. If you want to make multiples, pull a silicone mold off the sculpted original.

If you do not have a mini version to pull a mold from,
how about taking the image and making a line drawing from it in say photoshop,
then print it out on iron on transfer sheet, and transfer that to a wooden knob / dowel.
You could use the nose as the pointer

Man, I think I would just go ahead and make a knob (or two) from ebony (drilled & c'bored, dia & roundtop smoothed) then draw the face & have at it with a dremel & sharp-coned carving burr. (...maybe do a practice one anongside from some scrap)

Dave Stewart wrote:Man, I think I would just go ahead and make a knob (or two) from ebony (drilled & c'bored, dia & roundtop smoothed) then draw the face & have at it with a dremel & sharp-coned carving burr. (...maybe do a practice one anongside from some scrap)

+1, only I'd probably use maple, the detail will show up better on a lighter wood.