Help, please: Engraving Apprenticeships?

[BenHickey]

Hello all,

I am new to here and relatively new to engraving, though I have been a hobby metal worker all my life. I find myself now at 34 years old at a bit of a crossroads in my life.

I have about 3 years ago finished an HND at the school of jewellery at Birmingham, England. During my time there I got really into hand engraving due to a long held passion for knifemaking, unfortunately there was no one at the school able to teach me. Therefore, using some savings I purchased the necessary equipment (Leica microscope, GRS Graversmith, apex sharpening, etc...) and proceeded to teach myself using a mixture of YouTube videos, Sam Alfano's instructible DVDs and by looking at and analysing others work. If you would like to see my progress, please have a look at my Instagram (@fizzyelfartifacts, also below). This is by no means a plug for my social media and I am not asking anything from anyone on that front, I just haven't worked out how to post photos on here yet. I would say that I have been doing this averaging about an hour a week for the last 3 years, I haven't been able to afford much more time on it than that so far.

The problem arises now that, due to my location (rural southwest England), there isn't the work to enable me to pursue this full time as I would like. I have approached people already in England regarding work and although I have had many positive responses, I am no further forward. I would like to add that this is not a fault of theirs, Westley Richards for example, said that they were impressed but didn't have the time or resources spare to take me on and train me as required at this moment.

I am not in a position to go and do any meaningful courses or to continue to pursue this on my own time. I would love to make this my career and to become the best at it that I possibly can be. I feel now though that for this to happen the only possible way forward is for someone to take me on and teach me more on the job. I am open to traveling anywhere in the world that will allow me to accomplish this, but have no idea if this is even a possibility or if so, where to start.

Any help or advice is most appreciated and thank you all in advance for any of your time and effort that you are able to lend me. If you would like/need to know more, then please don't hesitate to ask, I will do my best to answer as comprehensibly as I can.

Kindest regards,

Ben.

Again my Instagram: @fizzyelfartifacts

 

[John B.]

Wish you luck, Ben.
And hope you can find the connection you are looking for.

 

[Peter spode]

Have you tried Tiffany & Co.
pete

 

[DaveAtWeirs]

I'm in Ireland so kinda the same boat (though even smaller). I was a goldsmith for over a decade and properly got into engraving just as the pandemic hit and then got an in-house job about a year or so later. I had absolutely no money so I did all my learing/training from free videos online, watching people on instagram and reading old engraving books that were out of copyright and free online. It's harder but you can do it with no money

So, getting in the door: The things that jewelers in particular would be interested in are letter/text engraving and seal carving. Every so often you get to do pattern work but lettering is the big one. I did loads of scroll work and pattern designs but it wasn't until I started doing lettering that I got actual jewelers/goldsmiths/shops contacting me. They want someone who can personalize their jewellery, like disc pendants and the like, that they can sell for a bigger mark up.

Your best bet of getting a job at it would be to arrive with skills that are immediately valuable to them that you can build on. In terms of engraving, for jewelers the biggest sellers are rings, baby bangles, disc pendants/lockets ,christening cups, and silver spoons (roughly in that order) so if you can show up being able to do them, or even most of them, they'll either hire you or send you work.

To arrive with skills they want the main thing to get the hang of would be engraving text and numbers inside rings, it's tricky af but if you get good at it you can easily work for yourself or even land an in-house job. Once you have that down, stuff like baby bangles are easy mode. I'd recommend Steve's high-angle 96 degree sharpening jig and make the graver narrow. I made one of those goose neck gravers too but I only use it on fully horizontal lines, like the horizontal lines in a H or an A or a dash in block lettering. Weirdly, block is harder than script because your eye picks up on misaligned straight lines really well. Oh and don't forget to put the little triangles at the bottoms/tops of hard stops on lines, makes a huge difference. Use the toner printer with acetone method till you get really good at calligraphy and spacing (I still use transfers most of the time to speed everything up). This is your main earner/interest gainer.

The next most difficult would be christening mugs/cups because they have all sorts of compound curves going on and they can be a right pain to get to sit in the vice securely. They seem easy at first glance but when you've got text going from a convex cylinder that transitions to a concave cylinder that has a brim beside it you'll know all about it. Not to mention some are pewter so they're soft as hell, almost like cutting fine silver. Get some curved bits of metal if you can, or even buy an old second hand christening mug and go to town on it. This one is more seasonal but a good earner.

Avoid doing trophies if you can, they're an absolute pain in the ass and not worth the time/effort. Yes it nice to be able to say that you've worked on them, even a particular one that's famous or on TV, but people don't want to pay for them to be engraved and it's almost always just wriggle cut nonsense. (Though I've worked on a few that were 150-250 years old and they were worth it just to see the craftmanship they put into them back in the day. absolutely phenomenal work). Another reason to avoid them is that most of them these days are plated copper, it's awful soft, gummy copper too. Plus if you slip or even scuff them while working on them you're screwed. At best the client will be annoyed, at worst they'll want you to pay for stripping, polishing and re-plating. Avoid em, not worth it.

If you can do mugs/cups then spoons and the like are no problem. They're an all year thing but you get less of them than the others.

Seal engraving is a whole other ballgame. That's less engraving and more carving. You'll need to make a bunch of custom gravers of various shapes and sizes so a rotary tool with grinding wheels is a must. You can sort of get away with it with regular gravers but to do it right you'll absolutely need to be able to make custom shapes. This one can be a really big earner but you have to be very good, and there's a lot of very good seal carvers out there, particularly in England. Competition is very high but earnings can be high too.

The only other thing to look out for for are watch backs. When you're starting, avoid doing customer cases, just do the backs. Some watch makers use some god awful steel that's super hard and slippy and just chews up gravers and the weird curves on cases make it worse. If you'd like to do cases get some cheap cases off AliExpress to practice on. Don't take a chance with a customer case, even if they agree to it. Once you've lost a reputation, or gained a bad one, its difficult to get rid of.
Rolex and the like are lovely to engrave, little bit gummy but with a carbide bit it works well. if you want a bright finish in their steel do it in two passes, first pass with a slight bullnose graver and then a second with a bright polished one. Watch for the graver chipping on curves and slipping. If you get the chance to do a Patek jump at the opportunity, their gold is beautiful to engrave. I don't know what they do to it but oh man its so good, it's like it was made to be engraved. You don't need to take the backs off watches to do them but do take the straps/bracelets off and then put masking tape along the sides of the cases to prevent scratches. though of they offer to take the backs off then take them up on the offer. oh and charge at least 1.5x-2x your regular rate when doing watches/steel.

 

[BenHickey]

Thank you very much, there looks like some great advice

I'm in Ireland so kinda the same boat (though even smaller). I was a goldsmith for over a decade and properly got into engraving just as the pandemic hit and then got an in-house job about a year or so later. I had absolutely no money so I did all my learing/training from free videos online, watching people on instagram and reading old engraving books that were out of copyright and free online. It's harder but you can do it with no money

So, getting in the door: The things that jewelers in particular would be interested in are letter/text engraving and seal carving. Every so often you get to do pattern work but lettering is the big one. I did loads of scroll work and pattern designs but it wasn't until I started doing lettering that I got actual jewelers/goldsmiths/shops contacting me. They want someone who can personalize their jewellery, like disc pendants and the like, that they can sell for a bigger mark up.

Your best bet of getting a job at it would be to arrive with skills that are immediately valuable to them that you can build on. In terms of engraving, for jewelers the biggest sellers are rings, baby bangles, disc pendants/lockets ,christening cups, and silver spoons (roughly in that order) so if you can show up being able to do them, or even most of them, they'll either hire you or send you work.

To arrive with skills they want the main thing to get the hang of would be engraving text and numbers inside rings, it's tricky af but if you get good at it you can easily work for yourself or even land an in-house job. Once you have that down, stuff like baby bangles are easy mode. I'd recommend Steve's high-angle 96 degree sharpening jig and make the graver narrow. I made one of those goose neck gravers too but I only use it on fully horizontal lines, like the horizontal lines in a H or an A or a dash in block lettering. Weirdly, block is harder than script because your eye picks up on misaligned straight lines really well. Oh and don't forget to put the little triangles at the bottoms/tops of hard stops on lines, makes a huge difference. Use the toner printer with acetone method till you get really good at calligraphy and spacing (I still use transfers most of the time to speed everything up). This is your main earner/interest gainer.

The next most difficult would be christening mugs/cups because they have all sorts of compound curves going on and they can be a right pain to get to sit in the vice securely. They seem easy at first glance but when you've got text going from a convex cylinder that transitions to a concave cylinder that has a brim beside it you'll know all about it. Not to mention some are pewter so they're soft as hell, almost like cutting fine silver. Get some curved bits of metal if you can, or even buy an old second hand christening mug and go to town on it. This one is more seasonal but a good earner.

Avoid doing trophies if you can, they're an absolute pain in the ass and not worth the time/effort. Yes it nice to be able to say that you've worked on them, even a particular one that's famous or on TV, but people don't want to pay for them to be engraved and it's almost always just wriggle cut nonsense. (Though I've worked on a few that were 150-250 years old and they were worth it just to see the craftmanship they put into them back in the day. absolutely phenomenal work). Another reason to avoid them is that most of them these days are plated copper, it's awful soft, gummy copper too. Plus if you slip or even scuff them while working on them you're screwed. At best the client will be annoyed, at worst they'll want you to pay for stripping, polishing and re-plating. Avoid em, not worth it.

If you can do mugs/cups then spoons and the like are no problem. They're an all year thing but you get less of them than the others.

Seal engraving is a whole other ballgame. That's less engraving and more carving. You'll need to make a bunch of custom gravers of various shapes and sizes so a rotary tool with grinding wheels is a must. You can sort of get away with it with regular gravers but to do it right you'll absolutely need to be able to make custom shapes. This one can be a really big earner but you have to be very good, and there's a lot of very good seal carvers out there, particularly in England. Competition is very high but earnings can be high too.

The only other thing to look out for for are watch backs. When you're starting, avoid doing customer cases, just do the backs. Some watch makers use some god awful steel that's super hard and slippy and just chews up gravers and the weird curves on cases make it worse. If you'd like to do cases get some cheap cases off AliExpress to practice on. Don't take a chance with a customer case, even if they agree to it. Once you've lost a reputation, or gained a bad one, its difficult to get rid of.
Rolex and the like are lovely to engrave, little bit gummy but with a carbide bit it works well. if you want a bright finish in their steel do it in two passes, first pass with a slight bullnose graver and then a second with a bright polished one. Watch for the graver chipping on curves and slipping. If you get the chance to do a Patek jump at the opportunity, their gold is beautiful to engrave. I don't know what they do to it but oh man its so good, it's like it was made to be engraved. You don't need to take the backs off watches to do them but do take the straps/bracelets off and then put masking tape along the sides of the cases to prevent scratches. though of they offer to take the backs off then take them up on the offer. oh and charge at least 1.5x-2x your regular rate when doing watches/steel.

Thank you so much, there's loads of great advice in here that you've obviously taken the time to think about and compile. I really appreciate it. Funnily enough, I have actually started working on my lettering somewhat and although I don't seem to struggle with any of the script stuff. The others like you said are a real pain, the main problem I have is keeping a consistent line width... Anyway, I'm going to keep at it and maybe one day I can get my foot in the door somewhere. Going to start with working my way through your list of stuff I think!

 

[BenHickey]

Have you tried Tiffany & Co.
pete

Thanks Pete, no I hadn't considered them. I generally have stayed away from London as I can't really afford to relocate to there, it's just too expensive. But maybe it is worth more consideration, I will look into it, thank you.

 

[BenHickey]

Wish you luck, Ben.
And hope you can find the connection you are looking for.

Me too John. To be fair, the engraving community seems like a really nice bunch of people from what I've seen so far. Also, people seem much more open to sharing information and helping others nowadays based on interviews I've seen with other engravers (notably Layne Zuelke with GRS). Thank you for the kind words though, hopefully one day I'll make it!

 

[Peter spode]

I only mentioned it as they were advertising an engraving apprenticeship currently. Closing date end of November.
Previous post from Ireland full of really excellent advice.
Pete

 

[DaveAtWeirs]

Thank you very much, there looks like some great advice

Thank you so much, there's loads of great advice in here that you've obviously taken the time to think about and compile. I really appreciate it. Funnily enough, I have actually started working on my lettering somewhat and although I don't seem to struggle with any of the script stuff. The others like you said are a real pain, the main problem I have is keeping a consistent line width... Anyway, I'm going to keep at it and maybe one day I can get my foot in the door somewhere. Going to start with working my way through your list of stuff I think!

No probs at all, glad to help.

Don't worry too much about the even line width, that comes with practice.
For long lines I set myself up with some 1mm copper sheets about 40x40mm, scribed a bunch of straight lines about 0.5mm apart and kept cutting them over and over. It's a great way to get really good at them AND to lose your sanity. Don't worry too much about giving that method a go, I did it cuz I was frustrated that I couldn't do them and didn't have anyone to tell me I was being stupid and that it will come with practice and time. Also keep in mind, when it comes to engraving jewelry it'd be rare to have to cut a straight line longer than 3mm. And even then you can get the widths evened out when back cutting your lines.

My main advice on practicing lettering is cut no smaller than 2mm and no larger than 5mm. Going smaller you get caught up having to deal with a lot of heal drag and stuff like that which distracts from the graver and vice control that you should be focusing on, and any larger than 5mm you're guna be running into issues with wobbles in linewidth and the flow of curves. Once you can do them well at that size move on to bigger and smaller letters. Think of it like training to be an athlete, 2mm-5mm is jogging, relatively easy, good for building consistency, form and core experience. It can be boring af sometimes but genuinely it will really stand to you doing the foundation stuff and doing it till you can almost do it with your eyes closed. The smallest lettering I've engraved is 0.5mm and the largest was about 75mm, and for both of those I was so glad I spent months cutting "the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog" in upper and lower case over and over and over.

Oh, this is less a tip but more just a thing you'll appreciate later. Keep all your practice plates/pieces, both good and bad, and scribe the full date into all of them. You'll be glad of it.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

That is some great advice from Dave. Unfortunately, you’re not likely to find an apprenticeship as such at your age. You’ll be too expensive for most employers. Apprenticeships are now really only in the remit of the bigger companies as one man bands can’t really afford to take them on. I knew a guy who took on an apprentice who upped and left after 2-3years. He’d spent money and time teaching the guy who then decided on a whim he wanted to try something else. Basically, as an apprentice you become viable in about 2-3 years and your gaffer basically teaches you the next 2-3 years you work for him to pay back what it’s cost him to teach you. That’s why pay is generally very low.

Had we still been in the EU it might’ve been worth enquiring at the engraving school in Liege. Who knows, it might still be worth a punt. Gun engraving is totally different to anything else you’ll tackle. It’s different steels, really strange surfaces - concave one moment and convex the next. You have to be able to do a myriad of styles, not mind boring repetitive stuff, recutting old parts, carving, inlay, small scroll, large scroll, game scenes, and the list goes on. It is possible to teach yourself though, Phil Coggan did and look how good he became but it takes a huge amount of dedication and practice.

Going down Dave’s suggested route is a very good idea, then in your spare time learn additional things like English fine scroll and the various patterns that the screws/pins use. Then when you’re confident, approach a local gunsmith. Often engraved parts get damaged or need re-engraving; things like trigger guards, etc. and these you don’t need an RFD to engrave. At your age you need to be earning ASAP so doing what Dave suggests is a great idea and then, if you’re desperate to do guns build that skill set in your down time. Lettering will always be an engraver’s bread and butter but there is still a lot of call for scrollwork too and it’s shocking how many engraver’s can’t do the basic styles that are still in demand. The self-taught root is hard but there is some great information out there in book and video format. Classes are good but can be expensive, especially if in the USA . The Hand Engravers Association of Great Britain sometimes run classes so check them out. All the best

 

[monk]

i'm not trying to be negative here, but if you can only spare an hour a day-- that's sort of like trying to become an olympic athlete training just 7 hours per week. how long can you afford to just practice? even if you're highly skilled right this minute, time is needed to build a customer base. if i ever claimed success at this art, it was thru lots and lots of repeat clients. jmho
but a genuine wish for your success.