Okay, have at it!

[FL-Flinter]

Okay, y'all have at it, should be good for a laugh, it's okay, I got big shoulders. LOL

Little background - This is my first attempt at doing a serious engraving of anything other than text. Also, I managed to bugger up the one good piece of tool steel I had so I hastily made a graver from hard cut nail and went at it anyway. Take into consideration this is going on a distressed (aged) reproduction flintlock rifle of the mid to late 1700's time frame that would have been considered a utilitarian rifle for a settler (hunting gun, not a fancy wall-hanger). All thoughts, suggestions & comments welcome (yes, even the laughs!) - Mark

 

[LRB]

I like it. Looks homey, and right enough for it's intended purpose

 

[Steve223]

I dont thinks its bad for a first attemped and it should fit in nicely on your flinter.

 

[FL-Flinter]

Personally, I'm not thrilled with it. Only plus I have is that by distressing the rest of the rifle, it covers the boo boo's I made on the hog. The only graving I did previous to this was making ID tags for plastic injection molds. Those were done in oil impregnated bronze, simply removed the background so the text was recessed into the part when it was molded (they didn't have to be pretty, just legible) .

I think I'm making my gravers wrong. I know I had my angles wrong before but after just checking another forum, I think my heel is made wrong as well. I have been making my face narrow and tapered wide top to narrow bottom. I then cut my heel square to the face and now I think I understand it should be split to form a vee when viewed from the face. Nothing quite like jumping with both feet and not having a clue what you're doing. I have a habbit of doing things that way ... gotta start somewhere, never read the directions until you absolutely have to.

 

[monk]

cutting a pig that nice from a "nail" graver aint shabby at all. that's the engravers credo, afterall--"make it happen, no matter how !"

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Well Mark..............for a first attempt with an old nail and not even knowing how to sharpen it properley I'd have to say well done. It'll look great on the rifle.

It just goes to show that you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!!!!

One suggestion I do have..........buy Sam's graver sharpening DVD. It'll take any mystery out of graver sharpening. Even if you sharpen by hand on a whet stone you will at least know what it is you are trying to do. You won't regret buying it!!!

Cheers
Andrew

 

[FL-Flinter]

Someone emailed me a drawing so now I think I know what the point is "supposed" to look like. I completely missed the belly angle, belly on mine was perpendicular to the centerline (likely way I had trouble with it wanting to walk out of the cut). Let me clarify that, I wasn't "cutting", I was "plowing".

If I understand this now, my face angle should be 55° relative to the bottom of the graver. The heel angle should be 22° also relative to the bottom. The belly angle should be 90° relative to the vertical centerline. Heel facet length should be equal to the width of the face.

I built a sharpening jig for my wood carving tools so I could maintain my angles (took me a while to figure out what I needed on them as well). If I've got the concept correct, putting a jig together for the graver point is no big deal. I've been hand sharpening because there was no point in building a jig until I had at least some idea of what I was doing.

Just a brief background so you know where I'm coming from: I've been a self employed field engineering fabricator, everything I've done had been design on the fly while building it out of whatever happened to be handy. Most of my work was all heavy industrial serving the mining and manufacturing industries. A month after we moved home to FL to get away from the cold in PA, my body crapped out from the over-use. Self employed, no insurance, major loss of belonging in the move, 14 months of not being able to walk and now barely operating at 10% of what I used to be able to do has all added to funds being extremely limited (make that non-existent). Thus, nothing that isn't absolute necessity doesn't get purchased. All my tooling blanks, except for the one that was misplaced in my junk drawer were lost in PA, the hard cut nails were the only thing handy so I use them. Now that I think I'm on the right track, I'll re-shape another nail and givit another try.

One thing for sure, I do very much appreciate the kind comments and wisdom everyone is so willing to share. I'll try this again and post the results in the next few days.

Mark

 

[JBrandvik]

Your hog looks better than mine

Mark,
For comparison, I thought I'd post a photo of some wild hogs we caught in our trap two nights ago. They are a mix of havalina and ferrel hog. We have a real problem in the Texas Hill Country with wild hogs. To the extent that if you catch one its against the law to release it.

The snout on these bad boys is so long that if you were to pick em' up by the ears they would just about balance straight and level. When I compare yours to the real thing, I think you did a good job handling the anatamy. In fact, I think your hog looks better than mine. (and probably smells a whole bunch better too!)

Thanks for posting your work.

 

[Steve223]

Jim i need to bring some hounds down there and catch some of your hogs lol.....talk about big fun

 

[FL-Flinter]

Jim, anytime you want a hand with them hogs, just let me know and I'll bring along the .62 flinter and load up my freezer. Thanks for the kind comments too.

Little update, I made another graver today. This time I ground it the way I think it's supposed to be. Still not having any proper tool steel, I did upgrade from the nails after thinking about it this morning, used an engine valve stem (from a 1968ish 302 Ford if it matters) Spring end is not hardened in the application, easy to grind and finish shaping by hand, once I got it the way I wanted, I hardened it up then touched it up with the final hand sharpening. All I can say is "WOW!" what a difference! This one cuts as opposed to plowing.

 

[JBrandvik]

Steve and Flinter,
Don't mean to hijack your thread here Flinter but just wanted to say you guys are welcome anytime you are in the neighborhood. I had to go to work this morning but my wife (bless her heart) stayed here and dressed out one of the small hogs we caught and smoked it for about 6 hours today. When I got home from work she had a real feast ready. These hogs taste a lot better than they smell. Plenty to go around if you want to bring your hounds and your flint locks. Though we are really into roughing it here, I have to say that I never tried to engrave with a nail or a valve stem! You should fit right in.

 

[FL-Flinter]

Jim,

You ain't hijacking my thread, I already did that myself! LOL

Did I mention I build combination grill - smokers too? I'd love to take you up on the hog offer but I don't foresee it happening anytime soon. I'm down again today, knee swelled up like a balloon and my back feels like someone is hacking on it with a chainsaw. It's going to be a good day put the v-stem graver and trunk lid spring chisels to work on the .54 Maybe when my son comes home on leave next year we can get something together. My wife grew up urban and she was a little dismayed the first time I came home with a hog, then she tasted it....and asked if I needed money for ammo.

 

[JBrandvik]

Jim,

I'd love to take you up on the hog offer but I don't foresee it happening anytime soon. I'm down again today, knee swelled up like a balloon and my back feels like someone is hacking on it with a chainsaw.

Sorry to hear about your knee and back issues, Flinter. I have 16 pieces of Titanium in my back, so beloeve me when I say I sympathize. The offer is always open though.

Best of luck in your engraving efforts!

PS Please pass my thanks on to your son for his service.

 

[Ron Smith]

Mark, I admire your inginuity. I just made a comment on the forum somewhere that you could learn to engrave with a ball peen hammer and cement nail. You are living proof. don't be ashamed of your first efforts. That is quite good. You should have seen my first efforts......you are on your way...Ron S

 

[Martin Strolz]

Mark, please have a look at my wild boar and believe me that I do not show I it to make you feel bad!
You only need very few, but fine tools for an engraving like this. You can work fast later, but do not hurry as a beginner. Try it once more and add as much detail as you can!
Martin

 

[KSnyder]

Flinter,
you're hog cuttin' is not that bad, it looks like a hog. Everyone starts somewhere.
I don't want to sound critical but on a 1700's flint rifle the hog is out of place.
Even on Southern guns in the 1820's / 40's period. The inlay would either be brass or coin silver.
Animals depicted were typically something they hunted, deer, etc.In this period, (Rev. war) eagles were popular also. I've been building ml's 20 some yrs. and studied 100's of original rifles in books and held in my hand.
This is only info. if you want to stay period correct for the rifle if not you make it anyway u want it.
good luck with the rifle project.
Kent

 

[FL-Flinter]

Sorry to hear about your knee and back issues, Flinter. I have 16 pieces of Titanium in my back, so beloeve me when I say I sympathize. The offer is always open though.

Best of luck in your engraving efforts!

PS Please pass my thanks on to your son for his service.

Jim, obviously you know the feeling. They can't do anything with mine, if they go in it'll just cause the fusion to speed-up making things worse. Just gotta keep on plugging away, I just plug a little slower now. LOL

Your on, we'll do some hog huntin one of these days!

"Thanks" has been relayed.

Mark

 

[FL-Flinter]

Mark, I admire your inginuity. I just made a comment on the forum somewhere that you could learn to engrave with a ball peen hammer and cement nail. You are living proof. don't be ashamed of your first efforts. That is quite good. You should have seen my first efforts......you are on your way...Ron S

Ron,

Thanks for the kind words! This was basically an experiment for me. I wanted to try it out, I used what I had handy. I tend to joke about it about when I get into something new, it's a learning process like anything else and I may never learn how to engrave properly but I fully intend to have fun in the process of trying! LOL

 

[FL-Flinter]

Mark, please have a look at my wild boar and believe me that I do not show I it to make you feel bad!
You only need very few, but fine tools for an engraving like this. You can work fast later, but do not hurry as a beginner. Try it once more and add as much detail as you can!
Martin

Always has to be one wise guy in the crowd! Just kidding Martin, that's some really beautiful work - but don't expect to see anything like it coming from me anytime soon. LOL

Over the last couple days of playing around, I took note to a lot of changes I need to make and things I need to have to put any kind of serious attempt into graving. First thing I need to do is completely re-design my work area and fixturing devices, until I have a decent place to work, upgrading tools or anything else isn't goign to make much of a difference. Rest assured, I'll continue being a pain in the butt asking questions.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[FL-Flinter]

Flinter,
you're hog cuttin' is not that bad, it looks like a hog. Everyone starts somewhere.
I don't want to sound critical but on a 1700's flint rifle the hog is out of place.
Even on Southern guns in the 1820's / 40's period. The inlay would either be brass or coin silver.
Animals depicted were typically something they hunted, deer, etc.In this period, (Rev. war) eagles were popular also. I've been building ml's 20 some yrs. and studied 100's of original rifles in books and held in my hand.
This is only info. if you want to stay period correct for the rifle if not you make it anyway u want it.
good luck with the rifle project.
Kent

Kent,

This rifle is somewhat of a PC corruption anyway. It's a cracker style, heavy on the spanish influence but definitely not held to any particular school of building like a Lancaster, York, Bean, ect would be. It's a depiction of a working gun, likely assembled from recycled parts and built for the sole purpose of being used hard. So while it may not be technically considered PC, I really was going at it more from the perspective of folk art. I originally built the rifle for my wife, it was to be her hog & deer gun, she wanted it brass mounted and plain except for the poured pewter nose cap. Since her right arm got screwed up, she can't possible handle this one anymore so it has become just a pet project for me. The only concerns I had when first building it was to make sure it was balanced correctly and that it was very accurate. Now, I'm about it with the idea of trying to capture the feeling of someone living in spanish florida at the time. There were hogs and deer and I looked at it as the rifle belonging to a settler who took to personalizing it by himself with his patch knife probably sitting by the campfire winding down from the day's work. (if you think the hog is bad, wait till you see the buck on the butt). So it being "PC" in the sense of professional ML building from the period, not so much. Being PC in a folk art manner, I think I can get away with it on this one, if not, it's still a great shooting gun that'll make someone happy. Heck, if I keep going on this one, I may just end up keeping it for myself, it's definitely a great shooter! If it was a .58, I would definitely keep it! (I'm sucker for a big bore big boar rifle)

I'm actually studying flintlocks from the eastern European region, I just have some unexplained draw to them and they are what I really want to focus on building from here on out.