Help, please: Historic lettering reproduction needed

clevetromba

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I am writing to invite interested persons to contact me regarding duplication of some historic lettering on a brass trophy vase. I will be making four trophy vases and plaques and need to have them engraved to match the lettering on an existing trophy from 1946. A close-up image of the lettering is attached. The engraved area on the flat brass plaque is 4 1/2" x 7", and the engraved surface on the trophy is 5 1/2" x 8". The letters are between 1/4"-7/16" high. Please email me directly for more information if interested. Thanks!
 

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Marrinan

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These look to me like they are more a solder job then quickly lined with a liner. The rope looking verticals look somewhat like a wire that was wound around something like a nail then flattened and solder on. Letters could even be made out of tin or zinc. Duplicating the technique would really take studying the actual plate to determine the techniques used. Fred
 

monk

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i've seen a few "trick lookin" jobs before-- not sure i'd care to duplicate that particular look that the engraver achieved on this. i'll say it probably looks pretty good on display.
 

phil

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It looks to me like the uprights have been wriggled with a flat on the one side and cut with a liner on the other parts of the letters. A strange combination and not at all common practice.:thinking: Also the serifs have not been back cut.
 
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Crazy Horse

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It looks to me like the uprights have been wriggled with a flat on the one side and cut with a liner on the other parts of the letters. A strange combination and not at all common practice.:thinking: Also the serifs have not been back cut.

You're correct. i've seen this many times. The one side of the letter is a course wriggle cut.
 

Marrinan

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Sorry, I stand by my original assessment. Blew pic to 300% I stand by a solder job with a liner used. Never seen anything like the uprights done wriggled.
 

monk

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wriggle cut ? must have some xtra joints in your wrist to do that. i've never seen wriggle, for that matter, anything quite like the effect shown in the foto. i'm quite curious as to how this was done.
 

clevetromba

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These look to me like they are more a solder job then quickly lined with a liner. The rope looking verticals look somewhat like a wire that was wound around something like a nail then flattened and solder on. Letters could even be made out of tin or zinc. Duplicating the technique would really take studying the actual plate to determine the techniques used. Fred

It's definitely cut, not applied. The photo is taken through a microscope so the actual size of the letters is 1/4". I don't know why it appears silver, since the base metal is brass. It may be a trick of the lighting.

It looks to me like the uprights have been wriggled with a flat on the one side and cut with a liner on the other parts of the letters. A strange combination and not at all common practice.:thinking: Also the serifs have not been back cut.

I'm not an experienced engraver, but what you're saying sounds right. What is "back cut"


The "nick and round" technique does produce a similar effect to the lettering in my example, but I can't imagine anyone using that technique on such a small scale (1/4" letters).
 
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phil

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Fred. I have blown the picture up as you suggested..... only I used a shotgun. Heeeheee. Just
Kidding. You are quite correct. Blown up it does indeed look like a solder job. I was only viewing it on a small tablet and it looked like wriggling.
 

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