I recommend Brownells as a good source for gunsmithing, engraving tools and accessories. They are a major supporter and contributor to FEGA and are the original publisher of "The Art of Engraving" by James B. Meek.
I agree. That is Flare Cut. Bright cut is the type of thing seen on western wear. The bracelet pictured below is an example of bright cut done by Chris Malouf.
Dan,
I want to make it known that the picture of the bottom of the revolver is not my work. It is the work of the late J. Ron French of Texas. That was the first image I could lay my hands on that illustrated my point.
That works great as long as you are working on flat plates or something like a knife bolster but gun engraving is not that simple. Look at the picture below and tell me how you would clamp that up in your vise and keep the workpiece in focus as you work. Keep in mind that the front of the frame...
I think it is a joke. In the old Communist days everything in Bulgaria was a "secret." I wonder why the magnets are lettered in English rather than in Bulgarian.
When I wrote "sliding the jaws" I meant that the centering yoke has been removed from my vise so that I can slide the jaws side to side to get the area I'm working on in the center of rotation. If I was working on something like that buttplate in the picture above, I could slide the block of...
I do the trick by sliding the jaws side to side. I have a Leica scope and the field of view is very good. I just don't have a turntable and never learned to use one.
Hand cut. Look at the bottom serifs of the 1s. The cut was started thin on the right then popped out at the end on the left. No rotary machine did that.
Mike,
Thanks for the WIP pictures. Can you explain your process when working on multiple guns in a set. For instance you could engrave the first gun completely before moving on to the second gun or you could cut the cylinders of all three guns then move on to all three barrels, and so forth...
Ray,
At first the engraver's mark looks quite cryptic but if you use some imagination you can envision that the mark loosely resembles a Conestoga wagon. That is the mark of Vernon G. "Vern" Wagoner, late of Mesa Arizona.
Vern was a WWII veteran who was initially trained as a jeweler and...
When it comes to English scroll, I can rarely tell who the engraver was. Ken Hunt would be the person to ask. He is on Facebook regularly as well as Instagram.