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Old 08-10-2006, 03:20 PM
Randy Randy is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 23
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Default Introduction and first question

Hi everyone. I'm Randy Hayes from North Carolina. I began hand engraving with unassisted tools in 1997, and after a few years of cutting monograms and lettering on jewelry and knick knacks I quit. I was using a worn out oilstone and sharpening fixture that I purchased from an old fellow that was long retired from engraving (along with most of the rest of my equipment), and my sharpening was so random and uneducated and gravers no properly tempered, that I was under too much stress at any given time from all the dulling and slipping. Recently, I was able to afford some new equipment, so I'm going to pick up where I left off -- monograms and lettering, but with an eye toward artful design work and whatever is more creative and more lucrative.
I am using other tools. I hope that doesn't automatically exclude me from conversation here because I have so many questions as I begin again. I also hope that the "basics" nature of my questions doesn't exclude me, but I understand if that is the case.
That said, my first job was block lettering on a baby cup. The catch was trying to match the lettering previously done on the cup in 1926. The artist used a liner for the straight cuts, but then added serifs with a pick technique -- not just to square off the ends, but to add the "triangle." I was using a 90 degree square graver for the picks, and they just didn't seem to carry all the way across the ends of the liner cuts like the old engraving. Should I have tried a 120? Or a flat at an angle?
Thanks in advance, and if I am welcomed to bring this caliber of question here, I will continue to do so.
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