Question: Bulino question

[henningssom]

Hi
One question.
How do you do different shadings in Bulino.
1. Is it different grinding angles?
2. Impact speed?
3. Or angles with your hand.
I have made an attempt, but I tried everything possible and I do not know what is right or wrong.
Can someone explain briefly the basic rules of this technique.
In the attached, I have tried with a Thor and Odin motive but can not decide if it is good or bad because I've never seen Bulino in real life.
Thanks in advance
Mike

 

[GTJC460]

From what I can tell, it looks good. Maybe post some larger pictures. Macro photos of the engrVing

 

[Jane]

Have you seen Christian Decamillis' video on bulino? If not, you should and can get it at www.engraversstudio.com.

 

[BrianPowley]

I can't seem to get the knack of shading with power tools. I prefer to shade with just the palm tool. The tool geometry is important, but not THE most important issue. Some engravers do the most amazing things with points of all angles, so don't get hung up on that.
Some use dots. Some use lines. Some use both.
Your best bet is to buy one of the DVD's available. You might spend $100.00, but you'll get a $1000.00 worth of information.

 

[KCSteve]

From Chris' video, it's not just putting your lines closer together to get a darker shade, in some cases you do multiple layers of closely spaced lines (with each layer at a slight angle to the others) to get a darker color.

As Brian said, the videos give you way more than your money's worth.

 

[henningssom]

Ok and thank you very much for your help.

I do not think I know quite what Bulino is.
You talk about a lot of lines (ordinary shading) in my world.
I thought that Bulino are dots.
That said, I am very new in the engraving world and have enough difficulty understanding the difference between ordinary engraving and bulino.
Thank you for taking the time to help me along the way, I will order the movie you are talking about and studying about Bulino technics.

Wish you all a good day.
Mike

 

[BrianPowley]

The actual word "bulino" is Italian for "graver"---the actual tool that does the engraving.
I think we've adjusted the word "bulino" to describe a style of engraving, which I always called "Banknote". (and that's probably not correct, either)
I spent several weeks with the Italian "Creative Art" team and their technique uses small lines.

 

[henningssom]

Ok Brian.
If I want my design to be quite dark against a bright sky for example.
What would you do wiht the banknote (Doting) then.
Would you use the same point for both the background as the foreground and just change the stroke speed or how do you do it properly.
Will the various shifts be in the depth of the dots or is it the grinding angles on the tool?
I can get shifts if I change the depth (stroke speed) but I do not know if it's the right way.
When I read what others are doing, they often mention how they change the grinding angles of the tip to achieve various dark shades.
Thanks Brian for putting up with my stupid questions and for taking the time to answer me.
I hope I can contribute with some help in the future.
Mike

 

[mrthe]

i'm not a professional but i think that the depth is not a question of the strokes of your tool , for a more darker result you have to considere more layers of fine cross action lines, like Steve say, is not the same make a sigle cuts of 0,5 mm depth for example that make the same depth with houndred of very little lines.

 

[Jane]

I really recommend you get Chris' video....you will have a much greater understanding with his explanation and visual aids if you order it and watch it!

 

[BrianPowley]

Mike, I pretty much use the same point for all of the shading. If I want an area darker, I just add another row of lines, but let's back up here:
It seems to me you're jumping into bulino work somewhere past mid-stream. You're going to have to start at the beginning on understand how areas of shading are "built".
For example: If you look at the basic color of your knife metal, it is gray. That gray is the "whitest white" in your scene. EVERYTHING that isn't the whitest white must be darker. That means all areas must have some sort of shading (coloring, if you will). This is the reason why you see some engravers work and think "WOW! That is just incredible!" It's because they understand how to apply the light values to each element of the scene.
You may not consciously think it, but your mind does add the color. You can imagine brown hair and ruby red lips on a woman although she is just shades of gray.
When you see some of those exotic animals engraved on guns, don't their eyes actually look wet? You bet they do!
Go to the beginning and learn how to shape the tool to capture the light instead of reflect it. Learn how to build those areas of contrast and add dimension and life to your creations.
You look like you have enough experience under your belt to advance rapidly. It won't take you long and you'll be even better than you thought.

...and for what it's really worth: Bulino engraving is extremely simple. A darn sight easier than cutting a scroll.

 

[henningssom]

Good writing Brian.

I guess I want to learn everything at once but now I understand that there is more to it.
My problem began a few months ago see here in attached. Excuse the photo.

As you can see here in the background, I have banknoted the steel.
At the upper leaf, I tried banknot a darker stripe by changing the air strength on my machine. It was not good.=(
The scroll that bends below, I made small cuts just as you have explained.
It got better,=) but I did not knew if that is ok in the engraving world to do so.

It has always been easy for me to sketch on paper and now that I have discovered engraving, I think it would be really great if I had learned Bulino technology mixed with Scroll works in my knives.
You all have to excuse my English, and sometimes Google translation is not enough.
I will continue to practice and try to get hold of them films you're talking about.

Thank you very much.
Mike

 

[KCSteve]

First, keep in mind that I am not good at bulino - I've just been trying to learn it.

From what I've been able to tell, most people use very little - if any - power when cutting bulino lines / dots. For this work you're removing very little metal so you don't need to make deep or long cuts. Mixing lines and dots seems to be pretty common - the guys who use lines invevitably have some of them get so short they're really dots and the guys who use dots wind up putting them in lines.

For the kind of thing you're talking about I think the way to approach it is to use dots for the sky. By spacing them closer or further apart you can get your shades of grey (as Brian said, the whitest 'white' you'll have is untouched metal and you should have very little of it). For the darker shadows you'd switch to lines with them getting closer together and then overlapping at angles to get darker 'colors'. Again, I'm just passing along my poor understanding of what I learned from Chris' video and reading here.

 

[henningssom]

Thank you Steve.
With all that is written now in this thread so I do think that I am beginning to understand.
Steve, you summed it up very well.

Give me only about 200 years and I will probably master Bulino in the end. =)
PS, this forum's fantastic!
Mike