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

Engraved Zippo

This had to happen sooner or later – engrave some jewelry. It’s a first try with a new technique, so I started out cheaply – sterling silver ring done in lumenesque style. Basically a modified bright cut for jewelry. Very bright and shiny indeed.

Engraving was quite a challenge, as there are two radii to follow with a graver (ring itself and the curved surface) and I have no muscle memory for this yet. Cuts are made with highly polished graver to make the cut surfaces mirror-like. Surprisingly, it came out quite all right.

Here’s the final result.

Engraved ring

Ring engraving close-up

Ring on a finger

Few more practices, then I can make one to rule them all.

This one is currently on sale, contact me for a price.

One of my (too many) hobbies is also fiddling with electronics and audio stuff. I built a gamma2 DAC kit from AMB a while ago and soon I’m going to build tube headphone amp too. In the mean time I got an idea to make amplifier knobs, because there didn’t seem to be very many options to choose from. Mostly factory made aluminium knobs. What if I wanted titanium, stainless or bronze knobs? Didn’t find them anywhere.

So I made some myself.

Amplifier knobs

Here is short video of how the engraving of that map knob was like. Source for engraving was some old simplified version of Earth’s map.

One rather quick and simple Zippo engraving. This is 1979 Dodge pick-up truck.

Dodge on Zippo

This is the first time I tried to engrave chrome plated Zippo and is actually worked out rather well. But the engraving has to be inked, otherwise the cuts are yellow-ish and showing the base material (brass).

This knife has been in the making for quite some time now. Actually, it’s been waiting queue for engraving most of that time. The knife itself was finished about a month ago, but different and more urgent projects had to be completed before I could engrave it.

The blade is made of damasteel, which is kind of stainless damascus made in Sweden. This knife was the first one where I’ve used that steel and I really-really like how it came out. The pattern on the steel is very fine and extremely beautiful. Now I want to make all knives from that steel, just need to find customers who can afford it . Any takers?

Engraving itself took 10 hours, design was about 3-4h.

Engraved damasteel knife

Engraving close-up

What are the best days for engraver? When a customer comes in and says “Do me something nice on that silver Zippo. I like your scrollwork and just do your thing. I’m sure it’ll be good looking lighter”.

So I get to drawing board, I can try out some new styles, play with ideas for a while and then “do my thing” on a lighter. Sure it can take way more time than allowed by the budget, but it’s fun and I’m always learning new things for the future.

One engraving style that has fascinated me since I first saw it, is called “Liberty”. It has quite unique look to it and can be concluded with one work - spaghetti’s. But very beautiful and graceful ones.

Without further ado, here my next Zippo project on a silver body.

Hand engraved Zippo

My bulino practice plate has had some progress, so now it is about 50% completed. Unfortunately at this time I don’t have time to work on it for quite some time. Few engraving, knife and sword projects need my attention. But, here’s what I have up to now.

Bulino Angel

I definitely learned a lot from this practice and next one will be hopefully better. It is was quite a surprise for me how small the dots have to be to create nice smooth effect. Basically just mere teeny-tiny scratches on the surface and even then it’s rather easy to overdo it. That engraving is 5cm high, nose is 1mm high and 0.5mm wide. Just to give you a sense of scale…

In the mean time I engraved one more Zippo for a customer. Design was given to me, so my job was just to engrave it.

Engraved Zippo

Quite nice design, isn’t it?

I’m also preparing for next Zippo engraving project. Design for that engraving is about 90% completed, just need to touch it up a little and it’s ready to do. As you can see I’m trying out yet another style. It’s called Liberty (some engravers call it spaghetti scroll, because of all those long, skinny and intervening… spaghettis). So, if you’re interested in getting a Zippo with that kind of engraving, now is the time to let me know.

Overview of how to prepare and sharpen a graver with Lindsay template. This time I used “Phil Coggan bulino point” template. Later in the video you can also see little ‘in the action’ bulino engraving.

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.

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.