Good morning folks .
Have not posted here for years so I guess ill say hi again .
Jerry and I were discussing this very thing some months back , while at a local shoot .
The practice of doing inlays , is not that hard . In fact would take much less time and expense then plating .
You don’t need chemicals, electricity or really any special tools , that you cannot make
I have to laugh because a couple years back jerry and I were talking about a piece I had done and the subject came to the gold pan ..
Jerry had ask about my gold and where I got it, the alloy and such . See the color was a little off .
We both had a real good laugh when I explained I got it from NAPA , LOL
See on that piece I had plated the pan by brazing it . Then grinding and polishing . What had happened was that I had cast my own pan and could not get the casting to raise a burr . I could have undercut and laid in a plate but I was very frustrated at the time ,So I cheated LOL
But anyway , back to the subject at hand .
As I said , once you learn the basics , doing a pan is no different then doing a bright inlay anywhere else . Simply put ,.Its only a mater of raising Burrs then hammering material under then . The burrs hold the material in place
Now what does change is the material your working with .
By working through the metals , you also learn what it takes to anneal the material you working with as well as learning how the given material work hardens
When you find you can inlay using copper . Then you should have no problem with doing the same thing in gold . Its all about getting the feel for the material your using ..
Steve Lindsay has a very good tutorial on the process of Inlay and damascening on his engraving site .
If its proper to post links to other sites . I would be glad to provide it for you all .