Hi Moleeyes,
A few years ago I posted the following thoughts on learning to engrave. You may find them helpful:
A couple of recent threads posed by folks trying to get started with engraving motivated me to start this thread. For most people, engraving probably is one of the most intimidating skills to learn. You get everything just right on your gun, the inletting, architecture, inlays, carving, and finish, and then risk it all trying to scratch in a few attractive lines. Unfortunately, the books and videos available are somewhat helpful but their value is pretty limited. If you are lucky to have access to a class with a good instructor, that is probably the best option. If you are like me, your options for training are limited and you end up mostly teaching yourself. Also, the intimidating nature of engraving tends to make folks reluctant to spend much money on it when they begin because they are not sure they can do it and they don’t want to waste limited funds. Consequently, the perceived difficulty of engraving becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for some because they don’t invest money in the critical rudiments and thus find it too hard to do and give up trying. With that in mind, I thought I would share a few observations about the process of learning to engrave:
Don’t get hung up on the tools. You only need a large square graver for outlining and borders, a small square for shading and details, and a small flat for removing backgrounds. You can make chisel handles and a lightweight chasing hammer will do. Spend some money on a good setup for sharpening. I recommend stones and the Lindsay templates but there are other options. Just make sure you have a system that does the job well and is easy to do. You must sharpen your graver very, very often and the last thing you need is some awkward setup that makes sharpening a tedious chore. It should just take a few moments with little fuss or you simply won't do it when you should.
Spend some thought and money on lighting and magnification. You cannot engrave what you cannot see. You must see the tip of the graver clearly or you will never engrave details very well. In addition, create a vise system that allows you to spin the work and tilt it as needed. Lighting, magnification, and a vise system are very important and unless you spend the time and resources on obtaining some workable version of them, engraving will be intimidating indeed.
Don't try to do scroll work until you master engraving a line that is even and straight. Practice thin and thick lines that follow a border or another line. Master parallel lines and the thick and thin border. In fact, if you never do anything more than a thick and thin border you will have achieved a lot. That border is often all you need to make an inlay, lock, butt plate, or trigger guard look like a million bucks.
After mastering lines, try scolls, but first learn to draw them smoothly and transfer your designs to the metal. Here is where a problem arises. First, if you cannot draw a smooth curve or good design, you cannot engrave it either. Second, you need a precise image of your design on the metal. Many buy layout white or Chinese white, coat the metal and draw the design on with a pencil. Probably most of you are not steady enough to draw a smooth clean design without "sketching" it with the pencil. Sketching results in fuzzy imprecise lines that are difficult to follow accurately with the graver because the width of the sketched pencil mark is several times the width of the engraved line. The imprecision of the line is often enough to make your engraved results look rough. If you draw directly on the metal, use a very sharp pencil for a thin line and practice drawing smooth shapes without resorting to "sketching" them. I suggest that you use a mechanical pencil with 0.3mm leads sharpened to a tiny point using sand paper or a fine file. Better are the transfer solutions available to copy images from transparencies produced by inkjet or laserjet printers. Keep in mind, that after having a sharp graver and learning to cut a smooth line, nothing improves your engraving more than a good design accurately transferred to the metal.
At first don't worry about fancy cuts, angling the graver for making lines grow thick, removing background and other sophisticated methods and skills. Just learn to cut smooth lines of even thickness. If you master that and can draw designs well you will produce engraving equal to or probably better than the vast majority of work found on original long rifles. Finally, there are many technical details and methods to eventually absorb, but the few things I mentioned are the key things that I found really mattered as I learned and continue to learn.
dave
