Archive for category engraving
First try in Bulino
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on August 30, 2009
Bulino means in Italian burin, or graver. When engravers talk about bulino technique, it usually means engraving pretty (small scale) pictures. This technique came from Italian engravers and they create truly amazing works of art with this, and they don’t use any power tools, just one graver and small 10x loupe. Works from masters like G. Pedersoli or Firmo Fracassi are so well made, that you’d think it is photo.
One customer ordered a Zippo with engraved picture on it. As I have never done any bulino work before, I took the hardest part from that picture, a facial part of that woman, and engraved it about 3x bigger than it will be on Zippo. Here is my first finished practice plate with bulino engraving.
In real life size it is about this big:
Real size
Practice plate with enrgaving
Engraved woman
As you can see, more practice is needed.
In process die engraving
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Carving, engraving on July 11, 2009
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:
- Create master die (that’s the one I make now) – positive
- Heat treat master die
- Create the hub (negative, or working die) by hubbing – press the positive heat treated die into another soft steel piece
- Heat treat the hub
- 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.
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.
Some new engraved stuff
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in engraving on June 14, 2009
Here are some things I’ve completed recently. Double bevel cut Zippo, vintage 1941B model:
While browsing around in some shop I found an interesting thing – stainless tablecloth hanger. To tell the truth, before I didn’t even know such things existed. But they could prove useful, you hang two or more of these on different corners of your tablecloth and they keep it straight and in place.
As with all plain metal things, I just had to try to engraving it:
Again, on sale: Engraved tablecloth hanger.
From same shop I bought wine opener, it is waiting to be engraved. Hopefully in next few days.
In the future I hope to add new engraved items and also knives to the shop as often as I can, so you might want to check it from time to time, or subscribe to Shop Feed.
Sculpting and travelling
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Carving, Travel, engraving on June 8, 2009
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.
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.
One more spoon
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on April 8, 2009
Different things have taken up my time lately, so not much has been going on related to engraving and knife making. But the other day I engraved a spoon. It was again sort of experiment – I did not prepare the design beforehand, but made it up as I started the engraving.
Also, this was the first spoon I found, or actually any other kitchenware, that wasn’t made of terribly hard metal and was easily engrave-able.
Engrave-In 2008 video
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in General, Travel, engraving on March 13, 2009
In 2008 I participated in engravers get together called Engrave-In at Scott Pilkington’s place. This is annual even held after Blade Show.
Joe Rundell made a workshop about gunstock carving and gold overlay, Paul Hamler showed how lost wax casting is done and Jim Hall demoed fast draw shooting, which was very cool indeed.
Here’s a little video of what happened there. To watch in high-res just click on the video.
Engraved Zippo
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, engraving on February 3, 2009
Don’t you just love it when you get something done? Past few weeks I’ve been working on a Zippo engraving for a customer. My first idea was to make it rather simple design, but that sort of didn’t work out. This is first of the ‘replicated pattern’ type of engraving I’ve done, at least on this level. One I made a mirrored design engraving, but I think this one is an improvement over the old one.
Anyways, that engraving is now completed. Here are few photos of engraving in progress.
Zippo engraving in progress, half of the contours done.
In this stage the lower right corner is completely finished (I just wanted to see how the final result will look like, impatient as I am), all the shading is done and some of the background is removed (the more shiny spots).
Zippo engraving half finished.
And here it is, completely finished.
Completed Zippo engraving.
Design took about 8 hours (I’m still very slow at it) and engraving 13 hours.
So, what do y’all think about it?
Sketch a Day: Day 6 (and Zippo progress)
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing, engraving on February 1, 2009
You wouldn’t want to run into one of these in the night.
That fella is sort of recognisable, isn’t he? But I think I will start posting after every other day or so, not to bore you to death with my crappy drawings.
But here is also a teaser of soon to be finished Zippo engraving.
Lower right corner is already inked, so that’s how the final result will look like.
Sketch a Day: Day 3 (and bit of Zippo shading)
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in Art, Drawing, engraving on January 29, 2009
Today’s sketch gave me also fits. Just couldn’t get it right.
Maybe some of you recognize from which photo this model is taken from? There were 4 of them… Anyways, I think I will take a little break from full figure drawing and try out something else. Maybe just hands. These don’t come easily either (what does?).
But on another note. One Zippo engraving is starting to take a shape. Today I managed to start shading. Here’s a bit of it.
Engraved guitar pickup cover
Posted by Viljo Marrandi in General, engraving on January 5, 2009
When the word goes around, all kinds of strange things are wanted to be engraved. Knives, spoons, Zippos are now quite regular. And them comes someone who asks whether I could engrave something I’ve never heard about before.
This time it was electric guitar pickup cover. OK, I knew what electric guitar was, begin Queen fan myself, but I had really no idea what that cover was and what it’s used for. A change to learn and widen horizons. Now I know where it goes and additionally also how electric guitars actually work.
Anyway, here’s the engraving I came up with.
Close-up of the engraving.
This engraving posed quite a challenge. As the detail was nickel plated, it meant “no mistakes allowed”, because when I’d slip during engraving, there’s no way to fix the mirror finish. With non-plated metal, there’s always a chance to sand or burnish down the mistake, but that’s not possible on plated detail.
I think it came out OK.
