FAITH has been RESTORED!!!Well perhaps not entirely..... I experimented with several method of fixing the issue.
I originally had 3 ideas I liked: A) drill out part of the errant letters, countersink both sides of the hole, and peen in a scrap piece of metal, file down, engrave and re-brown. I kept the cutoff [pieces from the box so the "rivet"would be from the same material. B) Make some thin coin silver overlays, solder or mechanically attach over the top two words (separately) then re-engrave. or C) engrave a wavy banner or flag around each of the top two words, and on the "faith" word, have the edge of the banner curve up to the bottom of the errant "I" thus obscuring it and making it a "T", recut the top of the "T" a bit bolder, and make the errant "t" into an "I".
Then I thought of another idea the late Jerry Huddleston posted as a fix for another (but similar enough) problem, and that was to cut a groove and planish in a piece of soft iron wire like a metal on metal inlay. I liked that idea a lot, but in my experiments it stayed in place nicely if I engraved across the inlay, but engraving lengthwise made the inlay want to shift out, primarily because it was so tiny and didn't have a lot of holding power.
Drilling some small holes as in option A) worked really well in my tests on scraps, but filing and sanding the patched in metal down without greatly disturbing the browned finish around the patch proved problematic. So I went with option C) , the safest fix and also done in "a workmanlike manner".
My friend Hank had a great idea of planishing from the back to obliterate the engraving (in the manner of repoussé ) and re-do it. That could have been a great way to solve the problem if the box lid had not been fitted and browned already.
Now for before and after photos... IMHO if you know what the original mistake was, the fix is a bit obvious looking. If you had never previously seen the engraving, one would likely think that I made a mistake and got too close to the lettering with my banner, and my lettering is merely not the best.
To match the new engraving to the browned finish I heated the steel with a torch until water would just sizzle, dipped a toothpick into undiluted Brownell's Rust Blue and applied it to the cuts. Then I followed with the same heat but dipped the toothpick in Birchwood Casey's Cold Blue. I let things rust for a couple of hours and carded with a steel carding brush and a brown paper bag. I neutralized with ammonia, washed with dish soap and oiled the metal when done.
Thanks for looking,
Curtis
