Western bright cut macro zoom detailed

[maryw]

WOW AND AMEN!!!! Your engraving is quite beyond words! It is so very beautiful!! I just go back and look at it again and again. ahhhh...........have you been engraving long?????? Thanks so much for sharing with us!

Mary W

 

[jack]

old times

You stay just the way you are. Thanks for the enfor. on the graver. When I was in school back in the the 50's we began shaping the gravers on large sand stones running though water and driven by large belts. We finnished with 4/0 paper. Great stuff came out of this school. I just came back to engraving a few years ago. You take care Jack

 

[John B.]

Hello Greg.

I sure enjoy seeing your beautiful work, the fine photographs and tutorials.
Thank you for sharing some of you methods and knowledge with us.

I made a tracing from the screen of your bright cutting tool.
Using a protractor the face seems to be 35 degrees and the lift/belly looks to be 45 degrees.

If I am right on these it should be giving you a good high angle of attack.
Does this sound about right to you?

Best regards, please come by and say hi in Reno.
It would be a pleasure to meet you.

John B.

 

[Steve223]

Just Awsome, the more i look at it the better it is!!!

 

[cowboy_silversmith]

Thank you very much John & Steve.

John~ You are correct in your assumption. My fingers touch the piece being engraved when I am introducing the corner of my bright cut tool into the piece itself. After that, during the length of the cut, my hand and fingers are above the piece being engraved and only my thumb lightly stays in contact with the piece. The way that I mentally view my angles is like this. The face angle wants to keep the graver buried in the piece as long as I keep my hand riding above the piece along with sufficient pressure. The belly/heel angle is continually wanting to release itself from the cut. So if I lower my angle of attack, the graver will naturally want to slip out of its current path. So with time and practice a person can learn how to feel the graver in their hand; it becomes an extension of their hand, wrist and forearm. John, thank you for procurring those angles. It would be a pleasure to meet you in Reno as well.

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

 

[Bama]

Fantastic

Your work is very beautiful and an inspration. Thank you for showing it.

 

[Steve223]

Greg do you start your liner cuts from the top of the leaf set or the bottom?

 

[Haraga.com]

That is a good question Steve. I have seen 2 people do it backwards and they weren't too bad at it but it doesn't work for me. The graver roll does not work. It seems to be a practice that evolved from bit and spur making.

 

[mdengraver]

I saw a cowbow style belt buckle in K-Mart last nite. obviously a casting from an original. Now that I've become familiar with the style, I took notice. Thanks for your pic, it was nice to see what an original western brightcut looked like. Nothing matches the original hand-engraving.

 

[John B.]

Look forward to meeting you in Reno, Greg.

 

[cowboy_silversmith]

Steve~ 99.9% of the time I start at the stem of the scroll and work up toward the leaf. Only if there is an impossible piece of overlay to work around do I ever start at the leaf and work down to the stem. It is harder this way as you have to start with all your teeth of the liner in the metal and then as you progress down toward the stem you need to roll the liner so that less teeth are in the metal at the end of your pass. Does that make sense?

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

 

[Steve223]

Yep that makes perfect sense and thats the way i do it also. I was just lookin at some of your liner cuts and couldent tell wich way you started. Your liner cuts are amazingly controlled.
Thanks Greg!

 

[Darren]

I didn't know you did it that way Greg. I am just the opposite with my work. I do all my liner work counter clock wise unless, like you said there is some small part of the engraving where I just can't get to it other wise. I seem to get in my own way trying to line clock wise, especially now that I am older and a little wider around the middle.

 

[cowboy_silversmith]

Darren~ Now that's funny...I am suffering from that syndrome as well (hahaha). You should post your bright cutting Darren and share your full range of talent here!

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

 

[Aflaaak]

Greg, What's all the pitting on the end of your graver? Is it from heat treating, or rust?

 

[cowboy_silversmith]

Aflaaak~ I have been bright cutting with that flat graver for 22+ years now. It is nearing the end of its life. I am attributing those pits to the years of the steel reacting to my fingers and my body chemistry. The pitting is superficial, as when I sharpen this graver, the process exposes clean material.

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

 

[Aflaaak]

Thanks Greg, Just curious.

 

[webad2006]

I'd be curious to find out how ya make a graver last that long? 22yrs, WOW!......