This thread is a few months old, and perhaps the OP was looking for reasons to blame his inadequacies on. In any event, that mindset keeps you firmly anchored in the mud with little chance to advance. Every person starting out has a few hundred bad scrolls in them they have to draw and engrave...
I've bead blasted many custom knives and a couple of gun jobs years ago. What I did was complete the engraving sans shading, mask off the area with frisket paper and cut through the frisket into the engraved lines with a scalpel under the microscope and peel away the area I want exposed with...
She was anxious to learn with a microscope and handpiece, and was even encouraged by her instructor in Florence. She had only worked with hand pushing and not hammer and chisel. She took to it like a duck to water!
I’m intrigued with the gold foil damascene work Ken Hunt does. The surface is hatched and the gold hammreed on. I’ve done a bit but the heavier sheet is what I’ve done most of.
It’s .009”. After overlaying I drew and engraved the design and lifted out the negative areas with tweezers. I cut through the gold to the steel below.
Valentina came from Bogota, Columbia to spend a week in my studio learning new hand engraving techniques. She was originally trained in Italy using old world methods. She did great and was a pleasure to instruct.
I love my job!
The comfort level of hand actuation vs foot is better because you can cross your legs, extend you legs, or prop your feet on your chair base. Aside from that I see no advantage over foot pedal operation. I can do the same quality work with either system. But I use Airtact for 99% of what I do...
MrBillz: get your facts straight.
Our ranks are growing exponentially, not shrinking.
Chinese knockoffs are not mechanically equivalent to GRS machines. Period.
If we didn’t like helping others this forum wouldn’t have been here for the past 15 years and I wouldn’t have been teaching for 22...
I wouldn't call them snotty responses. They're just speaking the truth, as I am.
Those Chinese machines are notorious junk which cause more heartache than anything. You're a newbie, and if something is not going well with your engraving practice, how will you know if it's you or a problem with...
These are really nice. Glad you're making them, Doc. I was sick and tired of knocking my lube and wax tins to the floor and wanted something heavy that'd stay in place, plus look like an heirloom tool. I see that Mike Dubber engraved his and it looks great!