James Ashley
Member
Hi guys this is my first ever practice plate I have completed except for cutting straight, curved and shade lines over and over. This design was taken from a thread a few years ago from Phil Coggan who posted a design for people to use as a practice plate. Phil is my fav engraver so naturally I wanted to do this 
The design is 50mm high or roughly 2 inches as was discussed in the thread and was a fantastic exercise.
So in the interest of self critique I am going to list some of my issues but feel free to expand on them or list anymore I miss
Backbones to main scrolls not perfect in fact some are shockers!
I think I cut too deep (probably from stone setting where lots of deeper plunge cuts etc are used to carve the settings out).
From 17 yrs as a jeweller I managed to forget a golden rule that your finish is only as good as your surface prep! Mine was bad on this as I didn't realise it would show up as much as it did later on.:no:
I changed graver geometry while shading as I was not getting fine enough lines ( you can probably see where). Managed to fix it by changing to a heel free graver which worked much better for me when shading.
When elements crossed one another I think I cut way too deep and rolled my graver on inside elements not just outside lines.
Obviously I also need to work on my shade line tapers and also placement when shading elements but I tried to do it myself and only fell back on Phils picture when I was completely stumped on what to do.
Cheers for looking :biggrin:
The design is 50mm high or roughly 2 inches as was discussed in the thread and was a fantastic exercise.
So in the interest of self critique I am going to list some of my issues but feel free to expand on them or list anymore I miss
Backbones to main scrolls not perfect in fact some are shockers!
I think I cut too deep (probably from stone setting where lots of deeper plunge cuts etc are used to carve the settings out).
From 17 yrs as a jeweller I managed to forget a golden rule that your finish is only as good as your surface prep! Mine was bad on this as I didn't realise it would show up as much as it did later on.:no:
I changed graver geometry while shading as I was not getting fine enough lines ( you can probably see where). Managed to fix it by changing to a heel free graver which worked much better for me when shading.
When elements crossed one another I think I cut way too deep and rolled my graver on inside elements not just outside lines.
Obviously I also need to work on my shade line tapers and also placement when shading elements but I tried to do it myself and only fell back on Phils picture when I was completely stumped on what to do.
Cheers for looking :biggrin:
Attachments
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Forumpracticeplate1.jpg
