Coarse bulino

[wowilson]

This is an example of my coarse bulino work. The customer wanted engraving on this hammer and so I thought I'd do a monster like the ones I had seen in books. The gun is an 1877 Colt "Lightning," so I made some sort of a lightning wolf, dragon, beast. It was very fun to cut. Working only with short lines the image comes into view very quickly compared to fine bulino and all of it's dots. If you look at the detail shot, you can see how this type of work is sculptural.

 

[thughes]

Very cool Wade! Like the rest of the gun as well!

 

[papart1]

quite nice....

 

[John B.]

Congratulations to the one that did such a nice prep and polish job on the gun.
A fine job. and it really helps the engraving show to best advantage.

 

[monk]

the monster works for my eye. the remainder of the gun does as well.

 

[wowilson]

Thanks y'all. Actually the finish on this gun was not very good. The customer had it done by "his guy" and "his guy" didn't know how, or didn't care to get into the recesses of the gun. When I received the gun, I wanted to kick it back to be reworked but the customer didn't want that. He also didn't want to pay me to fix it. I should have sent it back and refused to work on it, but this was a return customer and I thought I'd probably better do it. Well, it got done and now I have a gun on my resume that I can't really show. Live and Learn. Look at the loading notch in this pic and up by the top strap. This is how all of the concave parts look.

 

[allan621]

It's a kind of no win situation when dealing with a customer, especially one who may continue to provide you with work. I remember talking to a starting engraver who was working with a really respected engraver in the city where I started. He was told by an experienced engraver he worked with not to do a certain job because the store owner was only using him while his normal engraver was on vacation. He asked me about it and I told him the engraver teaching him was right with one big exception. And the exception was in the form of a question. How badly do you need the money?

So if you need the money or the experience or the challenge you do the work even though you feel you shouldn't.

Besides, you're selling the engraving, not the gun. And the engraving looks pretty darn good.