Engraving Detail Question

[KLMoors]

Guys and gals, the "Twigg" rifle I am working on has a detail at the breech that has me scratching my head as to the best method of attack.

There are a series of raised dots that are perpendicular to the bore, right at the rear end of the barrel. You've seen this type of detail before on lots of originals.  On this original, the dots appear to be small domes, with quite a bit of metal removed all around them.

Were these done with a hollowed punch of some sort or is it just an illusion that they are domed?

If not, how the heck would you cut these domes?

Any tips on the best method for removing small amounts of background around them?


Thanks.

[Acer Saccharum]

You can cut around the circles, then cut the background away. then use a small flat nose punch, and you can go around the circles, tapping up the material into a dome shape by going 'round and 'round, pushing metal in toward the center. finish them off with a hollow punch, polished on the inside. you'll need to clean up the background afterwards.

just a thought.

Tom

[kutter]

Do you have any pictures?
I'm thinking they are just punched in with a hollow point punch. The soft bbl steel will take each one quite deeply and easily with a single hit even if the size is fairly large. Do it with the breech pin installed.

Sinking the background around it can be done quickly with a liner graver. It cuts a swath quickly and evenly. The background effect left by the liner can be nice looking as-is and is often used that way.
Or it can be gone over with any other background punch to flatten & tecture the area a bit more if you want too. Smooth flat faced punches can be used to level it out and leave it smooth too.

After that and to make the dots/domes appear a little more raised from the surface, you can take a tiny flat chisel (think of a common flat wood chisel but in miniature) and go all around the base of the dome striking the blade inward at the base. The punch used to undercut lines for inlaying work well.

That lifts the dome upwards a tiny bit but more importantly it puts a shadow line between the dome and the background that makes the dome appear more in relief. It's done in relief engraving especially around figures/animals, ect to highlight them.

[Captchee]

 i would agree with Kutter . if  i understand you correctly it was probaly done with a type of beader . then the background removed around the bead .
sorry  these are not very good photos  but here is a beaded back ground  in the process of being done . with a larger beader , you could end up with a larger domed bead  that the back ground could be removed  so as to leave it pronounced



another way of raising the bead is to simply twist the beader after its been struck . depending on ho hard the metal is  the beader will make a real nice 1/2 bead

[KLMoors]

The pictures are in the book "Great British Gunmakers" and they are fairly poor quality and I need a magnifying glass to see this particular detail. I think if I scanned them (aside from copyright issues) they wouldn't be any help.

Very interesting tip on undercutting them to raise them up a hair. That would be a very nice look.

I'll make a punch and do some experimenting.

Thanks folks.

[smart dog]

Hi KL,
I think what you are describing is called "rouletting".  The ovals or circles are not done with a punch.  They are cut much like a nick and dot border just with the nick done from both sides and then the background cleaned up.  They are not raised bumps but revealed when the background is removed. Then shading lines are cut on top to make them appear domed.  I found I can cut them pretty fast with a small flat. 

Good luck

dave

[James Rogers]

Ken,
I just looked at the book and what Dave describes is what you are looking for.
Mike Brooks also uses this technique a lot on his English fowling guns.

[smart dog]

Hi KL,
The attached photo may give you a clearer idea of what I mentioned.



dave

[Mike Brooks]

First engrave two parallel lines. Then dived these into squares or rectangles. Then cut the corners off the squares or rectangles.....VIOLA   You now have circles. Look at the fowling guns on my website, I probably have some good pictures there that will help you. This is/was the traditional British method, there were no punches involved.
 I paid $400 to learn that......

[Acer Saccharum]

I'll send you $20 by PayPal. Thanks.


..and a large zucchini.

[PPatch]

"...and a large zucchini."

Back in the very early 70's I relocated my pottery studio from Boston to Stowe Mass. It was sited on a lake and had a nice view. I started a garden and being kinda dumb planted ten zucchini plants at one end of it. Due to neglect about all the garden produced was a few cabbage, a few scrawny  cherry tomatoes and an absolute semi truck load of large zucchini. Having not yet produced an acceptable load of pots to sell due to not having figured out a proper firing sequence for the new kiln (it takes a few firings to figure out a kiln), we were getting by on next to no cash. We ate zucchini raw in salads, roasted, toasted, boiled, and made into soup. I got thoroughly sick of eating them and ripped out all but one of the plants which continued to produce way into the fall as my ever industrious girlfriend even made pickles of the darned things. Shudder...

To this day I can't abide a zucchini in any way shape or form - in short I hate the sight of the things.

You can keep your darned zucchini Master Tom Curran!

dp

[Acer Saccharum]

I unwittingly poked a stick in your eye, PPatch. Sorry about that. 'tis the zuch season however, you never know when you'll find one lurking.....or where....

[Mike Brooks]

I'll send you $20 by PayPal. Thanks.


..and a large zucchini.

Skip the $20 and the veggie, I'll take a bucket of stink bait instead.

[KLMoors]

Oh man, my dad grew zucchini and eggplant for the whole neighborhood. It felt like we lived on it for months at a time. I don't think I've eaten either in 30 years.

Mike, thanks for your technique. I'll check your site.

I've seen lots of these that are flat on top with the shade line cut in like a smile. These ones just looked more domed, under magnification, than the others I've seen. It may just be the poor quality of the pics that gives the illusion of a dome shape.


Thanks Dave for the picture of that breech. I hope mine will come out that well. The Twigg has a lot of material removed around the circles, as in your pic. Maybe even a little more.

I'll keep fiddling, zucchini free, and post pictures of my results.

Thanks again all.

[kutter]

My usual poor photo,, but quick cut borders maybe what you are looking at it...

These are cut the same way, just letting the tool cut more of a V instead of sweeping it into and out of the metal to form the circular effect for a dot or dome.
I hollow punch dotted each one of these. But they can be lightly shaded, knicked with the graver, or accented with any number of different punches.
I drag the graver from cut to cut w/o cutting a border line first, but it doesn't really matter how it's done as long as you like the result.
Without a pic of what you are looking at we're only guessing with different techniques and the effects they can give you. Lots of ways to make dots.



Some of my crude scrawly art work ready to be cut on the upper portion. God, I shake terribly now..
..maybe some zucchini will help

[Captchee]

so is he actualy talking about a round top bead or is he talking a flat  round in a boarder  ?

[Acer Saccharum]

I've seen round beads on German work.

[James Rogers]

Pretty sure they are the standard flat roulettes. The color pic is a little deceiving but the overhead shot in B&W looks to be flat.

[KLMoors]

Well, far be it for me to beat a dead horse with a giant zucchini, but since this is the internet, and since sometimes that's its highest and best use - - James, I think we're both right. 

I just looked at them for quite a while and I still think that they at least have a rounded shoulder on them. I agree though that they look "flatish" on their very tops.

James, compare these roulettes to all the others of Twigg's in the book. These are definitely different from his other technique.  Whatever he did, he only did it on these two rifles for some reason.

 Maybe he rolled his cutter as he made his circles on these two rifles. I just wonder how he did it so consistently, almost perfectly, circular.  He definitely was going for a different look for some reason, compared to all his other work in the book. It is a stupidly subtle, and probably meaningless detail, but it stands out to my eye as a more interesting look than the standard approach he used on the other guns and pistols.

By the way, I did make a quick hollowed out punch out of an old nail set. It takes just a few taps once a circle is cut to make it into a dome. I'm still just playing with it and have no idea which road I'll take.

Ooops, I've got to go, I think the SPCA is at my door.

[Acer Saccharum]

Well, far be it for me to beat a dead horse with a giant zucchini, but since this is the internet, ....

Excuse me, but what a zucchini got to do with engraving?

[Acer Saccharum]

If you want to raise beads, by all means, go for it. I'll look thru my pics  to see if I can locate some raised bead work.

[James Rogers]

Ken,
I have a huge track record of not seeing clearly lately. I am also not used to folks swinging their vegetables around in such a swagger 

I looked for more Twigg examples and only found a pistol that had the roulettes. Probably missed more of them. That pistol looked more like what shows up on guns from all the makers of the period as common. I think where the difference lies in the rifles is that so much was removed between the lines compared to other examples. It could very well be that the sides of the remaining circles have a bevel and the tops are flat. I would be glad to be proven wrong if the present owners could let me view them in person! I know you would as well.

[KLMoors]

LOL

I did try posting a message on a British board a while ago about a different question for this project. But, alas, no luck.  I had fantasies that the current owner would e-mail me dozens of pictures from different angles. 

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I will stew on it and carry on.

[JTR]

Excuse me, but what a zucchini got to do with engraving?

You certainly seem to be infatuated with the things lately!

John