Jay,
My situation is somewhat similar to yours, but a bit further along.
I'm not a jeweler, although I've made a bit of jewelery now and again, along with various other artistic / crafty things. Mostly I do/did computers and Photography.
In 2005 my ever-indulgent wife let me go to the BLADE show as our vacation.
Lots of fun and tons of neat things to look at.
After the BLADE show the engraved knives in the magazines kept catching my eye, as well as the few other bits of engraving most folks see.
Didn't get to go to BLADE in 2006, but in 2007 we went to both the NRA Annual Meeting
and the BLADE show. I had discussed with the ever-indulgent wife the fact that engraving was intriguing me and our plan was to see about getting some gear if not
too expensive.
So, at the 2007 BLADE show the minute the door opened we went straight... to Pat Crawford's booth. In 2005 I
just missed getting one of his Survival Staffs so I took care of that first thing. Then we spent 15-20 minutes looking at things and discussing what I'd need to get started. The ever-indulgent decided we could afford it so I got a good basic startup set (went with just an OptiVisor for magnification which just about cuts your starting costs in half).
After buying a setup I played with the booth gear. Fortunately it seemed like I
could in fact, engrave, albeit very poorly. Still, not bad for never having touched a graver before.
In talking with all the fine friendly folks at BLADE I got
tons of good advice - including pointers to the web forums.
Took a week or so for my toys to arrive, during which time I cleared a space in the garage and built a bench. Got my stuff, got it set up, and started doing a bit of playing about. This was June 26th or 28th of last year.
For Valentine's Day my ever-indulgent wife got me the Ron Smith self-study course with his two books on Scroll Design. Currently working through the second one and once again I'm getting
major improvements.
Now to date I'm very happy with my equipment . Haven't yet run into a situation where the equipment was a limiting factor. Had a few times where I could have definitely used better magnification than my OptiVisors, but mostly any problem I have is just me.
But I'll tell you one thing I definitely noticed at the BLADE show: there were at least a half-dozen folks there doing engraving. The ability to take an entire engraving setup in one toolbox* is just one reason I want to get a Lindsay system when I can. Pure, unadulterated lust for fine made tools is another part, of course.
*Yeah, it'd be a
heavy toolbox if you include a ball vise, and if you want to go with a scope instead of a visor it'll be a darn big one, but it's still a lot smaller than if you
have to include a compressor.
Oh yeah, to answer the quesiton in your last post, based on my experience you'll probably have to spend $3,000 - $5,000+ depending on what you have and what you want. If you already have everything but the actual engraving equipment then it's a lot cheaper but if you're starting totatly from scratch you need a few more 'things'. Sounds kind of daunting but from what I've seen the few people who decide to sell their equipment (either kind) come out alright.