Knives and engraving » Art

Winchester Zippo, v13

Viljo Marrandi — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:03:11 +0000

This is my latest engraved Zippo with Winchester ’73 theme. Surrounding it is my standard fine scroll.

Winchester '73 Zippo

Zippo is brass armor model.

Nude Zippos

Viljo Marrandi — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:30:23 +0000

Some time ago I was commissioned to engrave 2 nude Zippos. Customer sent me the photos he wanted engraved and I was to translate this to the metal. As I just came back from Italy and saw what was possible, I wanted to see what I could do.

Here they are.

Zippo w nude engraving

Nude engraving on Zippo

As it has been with all my projects, it’s possible to do better, but it was a really good learning experience.

Visiting Italian Masters, Day 3

Viljo Marrandi — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:52:15 +0000

Third day of the trip was promising to be fun, because I’ve seen the works of 2 studios we were going to visit and like usually with Italians, they were top notch. Pedretti and Torcoli.

GS Pedretti

Pedretti is actually also a family business. Gianfranco and Stefano Pedretti – father and son, plus quite a few more engravers at their studio. About a year ago I bought a book about them, so I kind of knew what to expect and was familiar with their style. They are probably most famous for their hunting scenes with very realistic dogs. My guess is, that in their book more than 50% was dedicated to dog engravings. As is the case with majority of Italian engravers, most of the work is done on hunting guns and both Pedrettis are avid hunters, so their hunting scenes are very realistic. They’ve been there and done that, know what hunt is like. So this gives a good opportunity for nice scenes.

Here are 2 works that were in the studio at the time:

Pedretti engraving

One work in progress:

Perdretti work in progress engraving

Zoli factory

Next visit was to a proper gun factory – Zoli. So far I’ve never been to a fun factory before and it was really exciting. I’ve wondered many times how do they do some parts, like barrels. How do they tune, make them precise etc. Find out these things I did.

In Zoli factory a lot of work is done by CNC machines. For example gun frames are first hot-forged to rough size and dimensions and after that CNC takes over. I think there were around 20-30 big CNC mills doing all kinds of different parts. All of the parts are made from one solid piece of steel and nothing is cast, so this gives better reliability and strength to the gun.

Here’s an example of before and after, how one detail is made:

At Zoli factory

Here are the guns ready to be sent out:

President Paolo Zoli explaining how barrels are made and soldered together.

Paolo Zoli explaining barrel making

Zoli double rifle

And on to visit out next host

Manrico Torcoli

Torcoli is famous because of his fantasy engravings. A style where usually women, animals and plants are kind of fused together, creating beautiful fantasy scenes. Fortunately a lot of his work is done on knives and when the knives are made for US customers, they are more likely to appear on internet. So I knew some of his work.

His workplace was typical for Italians – huge window with a vise in front of it and a bulino tool. That was all, again. His small studio was filled with art and reference books from floor to ceiling. We were fortunate enough to see his knife engraving project in progress:

Torcoli engraving in progress

Here’s a close up shot through his Zeiss loupe.

Torcoli engraving close up

I did try to take photos of the engravings as close as possible for study material. This one was most successful.

Fratelli Dassa studio

Our last visit for the day was Dassa studio. Again family business, but this time they were brothers. They are most known for their enamel work, or color engraving. The results are quite striking and very detailed, unfortunately they didn’t have any works to show in real life, only photos.

After all this fun, we went to have dinner by the lake, where I got to eat the best seafood risotto ever:

Lake panorama

Visiting Italian Master engravers, day 2

Viljo Marrandi — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:46:38 +0000

Second day of out trip was the one I knew to expect the most. Both Gianfranco Pedersoli and Firmo and Francesca Fracassi were known to my by their books I had. Of all the engravings I’ve seen theirs was really the best. Pedersoli was my favorite, because of his style and design. Fracassis were my favorites, because of unbelievably fine bulino scenes. Their working styles are very different, but the class and result is really the best. You can enlarge Fracassis work he’s done on 1×1 cm to 20×20 cm and it still looks amazing with all the detail.

Here we go:

Gianfranco Pedersoli

Pedersolis studio was also just a small room filled with books from floor to ceiling and his workplace was near large window. Just like almost all other engravers have.

Gianfranco Pedersoli engraving

He is a very lively, friendly and passionate fellow, this shows also in his work. In his own words his engraving technique is very dynamic and he doesn’t have too much rules. Result and speed are important and he’s doing what needs to be done to achieve these. Most of the guns he engraves, take about 300-500 hours, which is indeed fast, considering the quality and detail of the work.

Pedersoli engraving

Pedersoli engraved knife

I made 2 small videos during that visit too. I think these show very well his character, style and passion:

Firmo and Francesca Fracassi

Firmo and Francesca are father and daughter and since I got a book about them, I’ve wanted to see their work in real life, to really see how it looks and is the detail indeed that amazing as on the photos. That day was the day for these dreams to come true. Yes, their work is totally amazing in real life. Just incredible finesse. Their workplace is also very simple a large window facing north and 2 vises side by side. As they do only the finest bulino work, their only tool seemed to be small push graver. And stone for sharpening it. But I’ll let their work speak for themselves.

Fracassi engraving

Fracassi engraving close up

Thei said that they work on almost all pieces together, one does one part, the other something else etc.

All in all, that was a very-very interesting visit.

Mario Terzi

Final visit of the day was to Mario Terzi. To tell the truth, I didn’t know much about him. I think I’ve maybe seen some of his works somewhere. But as is the case with almost all Italian engravers, it’s very hard to find info and photos of their work from internet.

Of all the engravers we visited during that tour, his workshop was the most unusual. As all the others had large windows and used a lot of natural light, his shop was in a quite dark cellar and used only artificial light. He was a real art fan too, drawing and painting a lot, designing his own yard fences and of course his engravings were quite unique and very interesting. Unfortunately there weren’t any in-progress or finished works there at that day, so I didn’t take any photos. But hopefully soon a book about him will be released, so it would be possible to see his works from there.

Visiting Italian Master engravers, day 1

Viljo Marrandi — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:05:09 +0000

In the beginning of June I took part in an organized tour to visit Italian Master engravers in Gardone Val Trompia valley. The whole thing was put together with Elena Michel Lamboy and Chris DeCamillis. Elena was born there in the valley and knows all the valley engravers and gunmakers, she was also our translator for the whole trip.

The trip was very-very nice and I liked it a lot. It is quite an experience to talk with best of the best engravers in the world and see their engravings in real life. Both finished and works in progress. Most of the engravers had very simple workshop, for some it was just large window facing north, a vise and a push graver, what they call bulino. Nothing else. Although, usually they had hammer and chisel with different gravers too. Of all the places we visited, I saw only one engraver using microscope, others had Zeiss 10x jewelers loupe and only one studio, which had air assisted graver. It was Creative Art and they used it probably for background work etc, not for the main engraving. With these simple and basic tools they create just jaw dropping engravings.

I arrived at the hotel in Valtrompia valley on Sunday evening and what a view:

View from the hotel

A little overview of whole trip:

Day 1

Creative Art

First day, first visit and what a treat. Creative Art is an engraving studio with quite a few engravers and they do all styles of engraving – sculpting and fine bulino work. Luckily for us, there was one just recently finished gun frame in sculpting and one done with bulino.

Creative Art sculpting

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art bulino scene

Creative Art engraving

Beretta Museum

Next in line was visit to Beretta Museum, which is actually not publicly open and we got to visit it, because Elena knew people there. It was located in Beretta building, where they have also factory and headquarters, so that’s probably why it’s not opened publicly. On display they had guns from the very beginning, made in 1500s and of everything in between up to modern hand- and hunting guns.

Beretta Museum panorama

Gun at Beretta Museum

Bottega Incisioni di Cesare Giovanelli

Next stop was engraving school and studio of Cesare Giovanelli. This is a very interesting place, because there it is possible to study engraving for free. You have to have your own place to stay etc., but school is free. I don’t know why they do this, but I’d really like to go there and study for some time. Besides school they also do all kinds of engraving starting with roll stamping, laser engraving, photo and other mechanized versions and ending with really high end hand engraving. It all depends on what customer wants and what is the budget. Their building was located in a very beautiful place on a side of a mountain with million dollar view. When I was there, they had about 10 people working at that time.

Bottega Giovanelli

Engraver working at Giovanelli's

They had also quite a lot of engravings on display, a photo possibility not to be wasted.

Engraving at Giovanelli's

Lionello Sabatti

Lionello Sabatti was the last engraver we visited that day. He had a very nice and cool studio at one old building. Like the other works seen that day, he was making top notch engravings, but he didn’t have anything at the time to take photos of. He also had two young apprentices learning engraving at hist studio.

All in all it was a extremely fun day with world class engraving, food and views.

Next 4 days will be covered in future posts. Watch this space.

Engraved rifle bolt

Viljo Marrandi — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:10:23 +0000

My weakness is plain and shiny metal, which just asks to be engraved. As it happens, I bought a CZ452 Varmint rifle some time ago and it had a bolt. It needed to be engraved.

So far I’ve engraved the part, which is seen when the bolt is in open position. Someday I’ll do the closed position area too. It was quite an interesting experience to engrave it, because it was round and of rather hard metal.

CZ 452 with engraved bolt

CZ 452 bolt engraving close-up

CZ 452 bolt close-up

Bolt engraving close-up

Zippo No. 9

Viljo Marrandi — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:32:15 +0000

This project has been a long time coming, but finally it’s finished. Engraved Zippo lighter number 9.

Engraved Zippo

Engraved STI Trojan

Viljo Marrandi — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 22:07:12 +0000

About two months ago I started my first gun engraving project – STI Trojan. Today finally this saga has come to a successful finish. Here’s the final result:

Engraved STI Trojan

STI Trojan - right side

The main reason it took so long to finish this project was the problem with hot bluing. At first I used my home-brew bluing salt, which worked out rather well the first time. I got really nice deep blue-black finish and was quite happy about it. But as I was lightening up the engraving with phosphoric acid, we call the process ‘French grey’, some of the acid accidentally spilled to other parts of the slide and messed it up. So I had to remove all the bluing and redo everything again. Long story short – I got the bluing right on the fourth try, after buying a commercial salt from Germany and learning severals lessons from my silly mistakes.

Here’s a little walk-through of the whole project.

First of all the original blue has to be removed and parts refinished, so they are worthy of receiving a good engraving. Here’s the slide ready to go, after 4 hours with sandpaper and sticks:

Trojan slide in white

The design is transferred to the slide and ready to be engraved:

Design transfer

Shading in process:

Shading the engraving

Engraving is finished, but still in the white. Time spent so far – about 20 hours:

Engraving finished

Now comes the bluing process. First and foremost, the metal to be blued has to be really-really clean. Every drop of oil and fingerprint will leave ugly spot on the metal and we don’t want that. Hot bluing is done in a salt at temperature 150-180C. The solution is alkali, so if it gets on your skin at that temperature, you’ll have an interesting experience. In a bad way.

Hot bluing

Next up – French gray. The area to be grayed has to be masked off, the cheapest fingernail polish works well. Applying mild phosphoric acid to the area will remove the blue and makes it gray. Black background and gray engraving looks rather good and the contrast helps a lot for the visibility.

Mask for french gray

Finished.

Engraving close-up

Trojan side view

Zippo with experimental design

Viljo Marrandi — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:20:06 +0000

Every time I start a new project, which doesn’t have too many constraints design-wise I’ll try to experiment with it. This Zippo was just like that, client wanted scrollwork and gave me a budget. So I tried something new and here is the result:

Hand engraved Zippo

I spent twice as much time as budget allowed, but I think the result came out allright.

Engraved iPhone

Viljo Marrandi — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:35:27 +0000

Engraving my iPhone is something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time now, the plain metal border was so tempting. I’ve searched the net, but haven’t yet found any hand engraved iPhones. There are a lot of laser engraved ones and cases, but to me laser engraving is not really a true engraving. So someone must start with the handmade.

For starters I engraved the bottom part of it, so when I did screw up, it wouldn’t be too noticeable. The metal seems to be some kind of stainless steel and a very tough one too. I broke many-many graver tips during the process and at least 1/4th of the time was spent on re-sharpening the gravers.

Scroll design is very basic and I drew it straight on the phone using china white and pencil. The width of the metal border is 3mm.

This section took 8 hours to complete. I’m not yet sure if I’m going to engrave the top and/or sides too. Maybe sculpting and/or some gold inlay?

Engraved iPhone

Finally I have something to show when trying to explain what kind of engraving I actually do.