looking engraving examples

[leviathan]

 Can anyone direct me to any sites on the web where I can see early 1800s types of printing that can be seen on engraved on original gun barrels?  Building a pistol now and have to decide. I want a Bible verse engraved on it. Nothing fancy, just plain type of folk engraving. I can find contemporary but dont want to copy. thanks you guys. 

[PPatch]

For text style look at the US Declaration of Independence and related documents.

dave

[smallpatch]

I googled 18th century script, and got several examples of the alphabet in old script.  Plain to fancy.  Print them, and keep on the bench for reference.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Engraving scrip, for me anyway, always turns out nicer that try8ing to engrave block letters.  That is very difficult, and I so admire European arms with block engraving.

[Goo]

I have been after the same thing for months now.    I have been trying to research font styles and finally purchased a book called Calligraphy for beginners.   The book is about marking letters with pens not engravers but letters and script have a rhythm and certain anatomy and series of steps to construct them.   The font style in the book i bought which is the closest to what could be considered 18th century is called "copper plate".       Mike Lea is giving an engraving class at the Log Cabin Shop next month and ther may be some seats left give them a call he is a great teacher and master at identifying and defining what makes great art in this craft.

[Gaeckle]

Mike's class  is full and filled. Long ago, in Lodi there was a college  of hand writing and as I think I heard it correctly, one of Rick's distant  relations took study there. Somehow the Log Cabin has gotten one of the sample sheets (it is very large, like a poster), the script is very elegant. I know  that Shipper's book has lettering in two fonts.

[Acer Saccharum]

Roman lettering might be very appropriate, but is very difficult to get square, even and regular looking. Practice a lot.

With the Roman family lettering, I do the cuts lightly at first, and am able to re-cut longer or wider as I see I need to correct. The serifs come last, and slight height adjustments can be made while cutting these, as well as the spacing between letters can be fudged a little bit with longer/shorter serifs.

Tom