Author Topic: Pictures of "Sunburst", "Lancaster Daisy", & "Edelweiss" ENGRAVINGS Wanted  (Read 3822 times)

BrushCountryAg03

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Howdy everyone,

If anyone has any pictures of the above mentioned engravings, I would be sincerely grateful.  I've been engraving 1 year as if this month using the Lindsay Classic w/ Palm Control and am always pushing & testing myself but despite all of the books that I own, online searches, etc that I have had a heck of a time coming up with some highly detailed pictures with very fine shading.

Here is some of my latest practice work  playing with borders, experimenting with different graver points, & using different shading techniques:

















If anyone could be of any help or offer any suggestions or constructive criticism please let me know.

Thanks,

Will

Offline LRB

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 First off, all that is better than I can do, but. On the two scroll and leaf pieces, your main/master lines are cut too wide or too deep, and too continuously even in width. That also seems to be common with the rest. Also much of your shading is much too heavy and over done, and often not in the right places on the main lines of the scrolls. If you have not already been here, study some of the work on this site. You can learn a lot from Sam Alfano, and his videos, some of which are free to watch. http://www.engraverscafe.com/ 
   

Offline Lucky R A

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     I think you might find the work of John Fleeger, McCosh, Allison and other Western Pennsylvania makers involve a lot of fine shading lines.  Rosenberger and Kauffman have a nice book out on guns built in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties.  Engrave one of Fleeger's eagles to his standards and you will have learned a lot about shading...

Ron
"The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work."  - Elbert Hubbard

Offline okieboy

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 Here's you one Mr. Shot.
 Even at your current skill level, your engraving would seem to go well beyond the usual standards of what was on colonial or golden age long rifles. I know that there are as many philosophies of building a new long rifle as there are long rifle builders; do you lean toward recreating old examples or creating ultimate artistry?

Okieboy

BrushCountryAg03

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Here's you one Mr. Shot.
 Even at your current skill level, your engraving would seem to go well beyond the usual standards of what was on colonial or golden age long rifles. I know that there are as many philosophies of building a new long rifle as there are long rifle builders; do you lean toward recreating old examples or creating ultimate artistry?



Sir, thank you for the picture!  You're right, with usually just a square graver & wriggler, virtually no magnification to speak of, and varying degrees of artistic ability/training, the average engraver off the street is usually able to surpass most of American colonial engraving.

When it comes to contemporary American or European 18th century arms, I strive to keep the style as close to authentic as possible, although for English pieces I tend to get a whole lot fancier.  That's why I'm so interested in seeing certain pictures of good authentic or "PERIOD CORRECT" contemporary engravings.

I figure all of the super fancy work is usually better left for modern firearms, jewelry, etc.

Offline Dave B

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If you are going to do period ingraving look no further than the masters. JP Beck being one. I love the simplicity of his work. Note in the close up he was not concerned about picking up the chisel to correct the line. He has at least seven seprate cuts on the leaf on the left next to the diamond crosshatched area.  One thing you may want to think about in your work. the implied line is subtle and quicker to do.




These are from our own ALR library from a JP. Beck so graciously shared with us all at
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=2303.0
« Last Edit: December 05, 2020, 09:39:12 PM by Dave B »
Dave Blaisdell