An Engraving Puzzle

[Steve Ellsworth]

Have you ever considered doing this for a living?
Awesome cutting.

Care to do a artist point of view about the design process on the scroll patterns. How do you begin, where does the patterning come from, is it a traditional shape mass per gun style

Keep in mind having read and looked at 1000's of scrolls the concept still doesnt seem to be one that I can figure out design wise

So aside from the obvious and the main lines do you just let it come and see where it goes or is there a logic to it all

Thanks in advance
steve

[MikeDubber]

More than applied logic, the application of scrolls in defined areas is an artistic thing. Having said that, and after designing scrolls for many years, there are logical artistic steps that engravers go through everytime they develop scroll patterns - and it gets easier with experience. Scroll patterns, and the way they are placed into the various odd shaped spaces we are given to fill, become a natural extension of our artistic/engraving senses. We have alternative resources in the depths of our minds that allow us (those with years and years of experience) to pick and choose from the many patterns that reside in our artistic portfolio. Give us a difficult shape to fill, and most of us can see it even before we pick up a pencil and draw the pattern. Different engravers approach the same space with their impression of what work best - and it's fun to see how differently each of us solve the problems of drawing gracefull and fitting scrolls. We learn from one another.

The most skilled of all in relating these artistic processes, in my opinion, is Ron Smith. Buy his book(s), study how Ron solves the problems of filling odd spaces with beautiful scrolls, leaves and other artistic patterns. It's the quickest way I know to develop and culture the way you think about drawing scrolls.

[Bielawski]

Mike,
Your work is inspiring - I'm going to try this inlay technique now! But I do have a few questions though! :smile5:

You said: "Inlay cavities are cut to a depth of about half the material thickness and the teeth are raised prior to setting the inlay material".

What shape graver do you use to create the cross-hatch, and can you please explain how the "teeth" work in securing the precious metal?

are these teeth pyramid shaped, or is there some undercut involved??

Thanks

Henri

[rod]

This is a quite wonderful sequence, Mike,

and thank you for posting with beautiful clarity in your pictures!

For me, it shows the transition from very precise engineering needed to allow your gold canvas to be set in place faultlessly, allowing the next stage of pure artisty to come to the fore.

A generous posting!

Rod

[mckeenh]

Thanks Mike, I really enjoy your posts so keep it up. I learn something from every one. Keep up the good photos and text.

Neil:yesnod:

[SVD]

Mike

Incredible work!

I have one question about the finished piece.

In the beginning you cut the cavities and inlaid each piece. At the end you relieved the area around the inlaid piece to make it stand out more.

Did you relieve all the way up to the inlays or did you leave a bit of an outline so you still had something holding down the edge? It looked like you had a great array of teeth under the inlays so you probably don't need the edge holding but I'm curious. I'm guessing that after having been in a cavity by the time you carve away the metal from the outside the inlay is so well fused that there's no edge / little danger of it being able to be pried up from the side.

[MikeDubber]

I've learned to make my inlay cavity very secure by raising hooks that bite the inlay material as it is set - once the inlay is set properly, I cut the surrounding metal away all the way up to the inlay. I cut so close that I remove the surrounding metal from the surface and leave a small amount of supporting metal to secure the inlay. Finally, a background treatment (dot or point punch) obscures the transition from inlay to background. If you examine it under the scope, you can see that the inlay is still held by a very tiny "dam" of metal base.

Having said that, setting an inlay/overlay securly can be done using several methods, including the damscening technique you can examine closely on Barry Lee Hands' previous tutorial. Barry used much the same setting technique by raising hooks (criss-cross cuts) to bite his Elk inlay gold as it was set. He then cut around the outside of the inlay essentially leaving no outside steel "dam" to hold it place.

Success in setting secure inlays depends on the quality of your prep work in creating a good base, keeping your inlay material clean and annealed, and setting the inlay in gradual calculated steps.

[SVD]

Thanks for the info Mike! :thumbsup:

So at the end, if you look very closely you might see just a little 'ramp' of material around the very base of the 'inlay' (which has now turned into more of an overlay). Sounds like that should protect the edges well enough that it's incredibly unlikely it can be knocked out.

[mead62]

Beautiful work!

You said you used argentium silver, but then you say to use pure silver. I like the argentium silver in my jewelry applications. Does the argentium silver work harden sooner than pure silver in this application?

I love the combination of the metals. Thanks for sharing your methods and beautiful work.

Jay

[MikeDubber]

For clarification - I prefer Arhentium Silver now that it's readily available. In the past (prior to the new Argentium mix) I always used pure (Fine) silver. I find that Argentium and Fine silvers work about the same.

However, if I'm using silver for a muti-color inlay, I always use Fine Silver because it's just a bit brighter/whiter.