Category Archives: Carving

Visiting Italian Master engravers, day 2

Posted by Viljo Marrandi on August 5, 2011 No comments

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

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 engraving

Pedersoli engraved knife

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

Fracassi engraving close up

Fracassi engraving close up

Fracassi engraving close up

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

Posted by Viljo Marrandi on July 8, 2011 1 comment

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

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art engraving

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

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.

In process die engraving

Posted by Viljo Marrandi on July 11, 2009 4 comments

After listening 2 workshops in Engrave-In 2009 about die making, I just had to try it out myself. Dies are used in making certain items in large quantities. Coins, pins and all that kind of things are struck with dies. In current digital age most of the dies are made with CNC machines, but I like handmade things. So I’m making one by hand.

The steel I use is Uddeholm K600, which is special die steel that is tough and is designed especially to handle striking.

The overall process is something like this:

  1. Create master die (that’s the one I make now) – positive
  2. Heat treat master die
  3. Create the hub (negative, or working die) by hubbing – press the positive heat treated die into another soft steel piece
  4. Heat treat the hub
  5. Start striking

So far I can do steps 1 and 2, but the rest is currently unknown. I have to find some kind of relatively strong press for hubbing. Some say it should be at least in the range of 200-250 tons.

Even if I don’t find a press and can’t use this die for making any ‘coins’, it is still useful practice for sculpting. So I don’t worry about it too much right now.

Here it is.

In process die engraving

As you can see it is very simple design and that’s in purpose. I want to complete it and get at least somewhat decent result.

Close-up of hand engraved die.

Sculpting and travelling

Posted by Viljo Marrandi on June 8, 2009 No comments

I just arrived back from US, where I spent 3 weeks learning engraving, visiting Blade Show and Engrave-In. Time well spent. Met a lot of new people, learned bunch of new stuff and got lots of inspiration to move on with my engraving.

I was learning more advanced engraving techniques from Scott Pilkington. We covered metal inlays, both wire and sheet and sculpting. My final job was a sculpted keyfob with letter “H” on it. This piece took me about 4 days to complete. Its height is about 5cm.

Engraved keyfob

Sculpted keyfob

The other side is still not finished, but it has a little pink gold inlay on it. When I finish it, you’ll see it too.

The annual Engrave-In is held at Scott’s place and it is basically an engravers get together. This year we had about 100 people present, even from Japan. We had presentations from Amayak Stepanyan, Ron Landis, Roger Bleile, Ray Cover, Scott Pilkington and a round table discussion with same guys plus Simon Lytton. Google for these people, you will see magnificent engravings. Steve Lindsay was also present there and I got to play a little with his prototype engraving vises. Man, these are smooth and sweet. Unfortunately can’t afford it by any means.

The day after Engrave-In Amayak showed me his sculpting technique and then it was time to go home again. I really hope I can go back next year.

Another first try – hobo nickel

Posted by Viljo Marrandi on November 7, 2007 6 comments

How fun it is to try out new things. New programming languages, games, photography tricks and of course new techniques in engraving.

This time I present to you a hobo nickel, my first try on this.

The term ‘hobo’ comes from America where it meant in the beginning of 1900s homeless people. One way for homeless people back then to get some food was to carve, or modify, existing coins and make art out of them and exchange these pieces for food. Most popular coins that were, and still are, carved were Buffalo nickels, which were made in 1913-1938 period. They had large area, lots of metal to transform to new artwork and, last but not least, they were cheap – 5 cents.

The process of carving is relatively simple. You take your host coin, your 2 tools plus sanding paper and off you go. Trim the nose, chin, remove feathers, add hat or hair and so on. But to make a really nice modification it requires lots of time, skill and talent. I think I have 1.3 of 3 requirements (time and little talent).

Here’s how the original Buffalo nickel  looks, it’s just a sample, not the one I carved:

Buffalo nickel

And here is my modification, called “The Poet”:

Hobo nickel

As you can see the backgrounds are not very smooth and I have some holes, which I made during the flattening process with graver. As they say, it can only get better!

This is my source image, as you can see it has some resemblance, but not much. It takes lots of practice to get what I really want…

Hobo with source image