Knives and engraving » Travel

Visiting Italian Masters, Day 4 and 5

Viljo Marrandi — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 06:00:32 +0000

Here’s the last installment on my Italian Engravers tour posts.

Day 4 – Visiting Venice

On Thursday we visited Venice, but as this isn’t engraving related, then I won’t spend too much about on it. The city was nice, glass factory and shops in Murano were just fabulous. I’ve never seen glass art at this level and there I really started to like it. But of course I couldn’t afford 60000 EUR mirror.

Day 5

Final day of my trip and few rather fun things were waiting…

Frederique Lepinois

Visiting Frederique was a blast. I hadn’t heard anything about her before, so I was in for a surprise. After seeing few of her works, she became my favorite engraver of the whole trip. She studied engraving in Belgium and its influence was clearly seen on the design. For my taste this worked very well – kind of symmetrical with very-very nice scenes. Check out the gallery at her own website – Frederique Lepinois.

S.I.A.C.E. factory

A family owned gun factory. When Zoli had a nice and big CNC park, S.I.A.C.E was basically all handmade. Some parts were outsourced, but most of the things were made there by few workers. Very cool place. And I got two gun stocks for practicing checkering. What more could I want?

Ugo the stocker

Last visit of the trip was stockmaker and his son. They were making some real nice high-end gun stocks and the ones that I saw there were really-really nice.

Gun stock makers table

For the conclusion all I can say, is that this was a really awesome trip. I saw a lot, learned quite a few things and met very passionate, artistic and skilled people. Absolutely worth the while.

After that week in Gardone ValTrompia I spend two more days in Rome and then 2 in Florence. Again, very nice and interesting 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.

Sculpting and travelling

Viljo Marrandi — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:56:23 +0000

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.

Engrave-In 2008 video

Viljo Marrandi — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:01:09 +0000

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.

USA, Blade Show and Engrave-In

Viljo Marrandi — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:57:47 +0000

Like you can already guess from title, I’ve been rather busy lately. I had a chance to do at least 3 new things: travel to States, attend Atlanta Blade Show (THE knife show) and after that attend Engrave-In. I’ll try to write short overview of them all.

USA

In many ways it’s an interesting and strange country for me. I’m used to more European way of living, so when travelling around in Europe, at least in central part of it, isn’t that much different from Estonia. Maybe a little more civilized and cleaner etc. But America had quite a few strange things in store for me. All in all I could say that everything is bigger. Roads, cars, food portions and, yes, people too. While here we have rarely any 2-lane highways, there the usual norm seemed to be something like 4-5 lanes. So driving through the center of Atlanta at 130 km/h was quite strange experience.

And, my’o'my, about 50% of cars seemed to be SUV’s. No wonder you people complain about gas prices going higher. In addition we didn’t see that many people walking around. You guys don’t even have roads for walking. At some places we had to literally walk over flowerbeds to get to the other side of the road. Also, no public transportation to talk about. You guys are too comfortable with all those cars . Oh yeah, and no bicycles either.

But I loved the nature. Fortunately we had a chance to drive around in Tennessee and what a sightseeing it was with all those big mountains.

I loved the people. We had a chance to stay at 2 families during our trip and meet many other people at Blade and Engrave-In. I’d say 110% of kindness and helpfulness. Everybody went just out of their way to make us comfortable and see that we had everything we needed. We lived there like king’s cats. I also liked that people were so easy going and open, seemed to take life easier and enjoy it more. Here, when travelling by public transport, I sometimes have a real struggle not to laugh, because all people seem to be so sad, depressed or angry. I don’t know why they make life so hard.

Atlanta Blade Show

Now that was an experience. 3 days and about 600 exhibitors. Top makers from all over the world. If you’re a knife nut or a maker, this is definitely a show to visit. So much to see, so much to buy, so much inspiration. Also the biggest show I’ve ever been. There was actually the first time I could see in real life real high-end handmade custom knifes and engravings. A real treat for me.

During the Blade I got my Lindsay Classic with PalmControl from Ray Cover (Lindsay sent it to him, so I wouldn’t have to pay for international shipping and fees). If you don’t know, then Steve’s PalmControl is THE Cadillac of engraving world. Just the sweetest, coolest and most useful engraving one could imagine to have. And I have it! Nice thing about it is, that it doesn’t require much air and works even with CO2 tanks. So here is how my table at hotel looked one evening:

Engrave-In

This was engravers get-together meeting after the Blade at Scott Pilkington‘s place. A very cool event, too. Many excellent and superb engravers were there along with many beginners, including me. There we had 2 seminars: one from Joe Rundell about carving wood and gold overlay and second was from Paul Hamler about investment casting. Both were very informative and I learned a lot from those.

There I also got to see the coolest gun I’ve ever seen. It was engraved by Joe Rundell. It wasn’t yet ready, but even at that stage it was very-very impressive. So far he has spent over 2000 hours on this engraving and he said he’s little over half done with it.

All in all it was a very nice trip and I’m really happy about it. I definitely want to go back to USA someday to visit the people I met there.