Does anyone do hammer and chisel engraving?

Or had it fallen into the "lost art" category due to time and cost?

 

what do you consider the gravermeister to be using an 'air hammer' system with the chisels?

And I believe very high end gun engraving is still done by hand by a limited number of people

If you've never seen Ford Hallam's videos about making and engraving a tsuba, watch this (part one) and this (part two)  Beautiful work. 

 

JCHH, Thank you.

4 months work and unbelievable skill produces a wonderful piece of work.

 

Jaw-droppingly gorgeous. 

A stunning demonstration of a great craftsman, both past and present, and the virtues thereof. Knowledge, Skill, Patience.

I feel fortunate to have been exposed to working with metals enough to truly appreciate it. 

This landed in my facebook page. Seems like a lot of work spent engraving. Not sure I would want to use it.

 

 

 

Yeah thatd be a vise for looking at. Far to pretty to use. It's incredible work.

I'd have no problems using that vise----for jewelry work...

Looking at the vice I am wondering if it is one in the museum of ironwork at Ruon in France

Thank you for the link, I'm at a loss for words beautiful, master, etc. are too mundane to fit. I wonder if he has an apprentice? Okay the young man at the bench behind him in some of the shots is probably the next master in training. Dad was training me at that age, a definite strength of a family business.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm inclined to believe many of them can be found in London hand engraving some of the worlds best firearms. Firms such as Purdey, Holland and Holland, Boss etc employ some of the worlds best belonging to British Jewelers Guilds. When not working on guns these guys also engrave watches and other fine jewelry.

George

Glenn,

There is a kindred craft that is distantly related to such engraving. And that is gun checkering and hand carving in/of gun stocks.

Also, as Mr. Geist mentioned, the engraving of gun barrels and other gun parts. I would be very surprised if there were few such skilled tradesmen here in North America.

We have enormous number of firearms here, and many of them have at least a little checkering in their gunstocks. High end rifles and shotguns probably have hand checkering.

A little googling should result in web articles and groups dedicated to those trades.

SLAG.

I was at a blacksmithing conference many years ago, which I saw and met Ward Grossman doing the traditional German craft of "Eisenhowering" --- cold carving steel with hammer and chisel. I haven't heard anything of Ward since then, but the work he was doing was very impressive.

A good book for learning engraving is by James B Meek called the Art of Engraving. I got mine from Brownell & Son. They have gravers and other supplies. I have made cutters and die sink chisels from different size chain saw files that work well. 

I also got Lynten McKinzies instruction tapes on engraving. and a couple of others I can't think of. A bad car wreck with a drunk driver ten years ago has left me with nerve damage and tremors that have just about stopped my engraving and carving. 

in the mid nineties I bought a sushi knife in the shop near the "Thunder gate" in Asakusa Tokyo. The sales guy did not sell me the knife I had chosen. He brought an identical blade from somewhere in the back of the litte shop, suggested a suitable handle and put it on and then engraved the shop's name in the blade as I was waiting. (This type of blade as a thin sheet of hard steel welded to the side of a softer blank). Thereupon he showed that the knife was pretty sharp and asked if I wanted it really sharp. Sharpening would take twenty minutes. Of course I said yes so he sat down on the steps leaing to the back of the shop, holding the stones with his feet and started. Considering the quality of the knife and the work included the knife was very cheap.

The last time I was there (2014) the handles were on and engraving done but they still put in twenty minutes of sharpening 

Taking a close look at the vise, one might wonder whether it is chased rather than engraved. A how-to article titled "Chasing Solid Material" by Tom Latane, appeared in the latest "Hammer's Blow" Vol. 25, #1. Interestingly, he performs his work on a small leg vise. When chasing, material is 'set down' with variously shaped tools. When engraving, "threads" of material are cut and removed from the workpiece.

David Irving of Denver, recently brought to me for my perusal a pair of cruciform stirrups. We think the work is chased and the design is amazingly involved. Besides chasing, there is also openwork. The design is run through with arabesques, grotesque faces, and a "bestiary," if one included all the animal forms.

Dearest Frank, 
On the material; I searched Frank, I have been fortunate to have the O1 for these tools; my intention, imagine I'm elated by the Physical copy of hammers blow 25 is to use any information to make my own set.
 Thirteen months as a blacksmith I am going to make these tools. From what I accrued, (2 lengths 5-1/4"x1") (3 lengths 4-3/16"x7/8")(11 lengths 4-1/2"x3/4") O1 I Looked at tools from pieh, they were 4.5" long.

 The plan is use: Tom Latane's tool shapes, Taper both sides toward robust center, I find them to be appealing. The issue and stopping point; I'm at, is what size I will be able to create. I could rephrase this many ways but it comes down to correctly using these materia. I have made many things as learning pieces and they haven't been perfect but I will pour over these tools for may be the rest of my life and wish they would be effective from the get go, tonight I will take these lengths of O1 away from their parents.

The problem I found is that information on the internet is dense with copper repousse and is it reliable for the creation of steel repousse/chasing application?

Adolf Steins Moving metal I don't know, should I wait to get this before making my tools or will the book be a utility to the point of creating tools.

Lastly I reiterate to anybody, see the three parent width round, what sizes and shapes would be best; for example, the largest keep them large, and taper the tips of the 3/4 own to 1/4. Then my tools may end up to long, should I adjust the lengths before cutting them depending on how far they will get tapered.

My websites thewaveoftime.com theres my shop, and my stuff, I plan to add more to it.  I'm glad to join a community on the same plane, with excitement & enthusiasm for the craft, thank you.

James Alexander Cole Groomes

Frank, those are mind blowing. I'd love to see all of the details. Even the one close up picture is keeping me busy. WOW. 

JamesJimiY et al.,

I wish I could guide you through 'bossing up', sheet and chasing, but it is not my forte. Chasing in the solid is something I have not done. I could refer you to d'Allemagne, "Decorative Antique Ironwork." This book has a few amazing repousse photos, one of an entire horseback battle scene, worthy of study  and done in iron sheet metal, not copper.

You won't know what business ends are needed on your tools until you have a layout drawing of what you intend to do. When a tool is finished, it may not be finished. After first use, you may need to  sand and polish and try it again. This can be repeated until you get it to behave. You will discover over time what lengths suit you. I have found that the holding hand on the tool is formed sort of like a pool cue hand bridge. This gives good stability. I have also found that many learners hit the head of the tool twice when they should have only hit it once. Why do they do this? I don't know. The first blow is a dinky blow and he second blow is the effective, harder blow. Observe yourself, and if you are using extra dinky blow, stop it!

O1 is not normalized. If cooled in air from a bright cherry, it will harden to a degree, but it will be an unstable hardness. Therefore, annealing is in order prior to hardening and tempering.

I recommend your googling of "The Locksmith Shop of Manuel Guerra" Except for the electric grinders and forge blower, you would be looking at a shop and the way people worked in the 16th century. A couple of young men are chiseling openwork on sheet. It pays to observe the speed and dexterity, especially of one boy, maybe 12 years old and seated at his work table. Guerra has now passed, unfortunately.  His shop was in Cuenca, Ecuador.

 

On 05/02/2017 at 10:14 PM, George Geist said:

I'm inclined to believe many of them can be found in London hand engraving some of the worlds best firearms. Firms such as Purdey, Holland and Holland, Boss etc employ some of the worlds best belonging to British Jewelers Guilds. When not working on guns these guys also engrave watches and other fine jewelry.

George

I am not quite sure about this. I am happy to be proven wrong if you know for certain.

As far as I know the gun trade and the hammer engravers are relatively separate from the horology / trophy / silver / jewellery trades. Most of the fine stuff is hand burin rather than hammer even in steel. There will obviously be a few crossovers with the shrinking of the bespoke gun trade. I have had a few projects hammer engraved by a fine craftsman in Birmingham, who trained in the gun trade there. But he was one of the few still doing it, and that was over twenty years ago.

There are not any Jewellers Guilds as such over here that I am aware of.

I would agree that the stirrups Frank illustrated are chased rather than engraved, I am mainly looking at the tapered ends of the lines and the rounded edges where the metal was dragged down...engraved lines are much crisper, and often finer and shallower.

I have done a little bit of chasing over the years. First in silver jewellery but some in steel, gilding metal and brass. I made all my punches from Stubbs silver steel. 

The most recent were these chased and pierced daffodil sconces from 2mm brass, made in 2010/2011.

Alan

Tom Latane teaches classes         

Is Ivan Bailey still working? He used to do hammer engraving.

Alan

On 04/02/2017 at 8:00 AM, Marc1 said:

This landed in my facebook page. Seems like a lot of work spent engraving. Not sure I would want to use it.

 

Looking at the hands in the back right of the image and the size of the clamp-to-bench screw that looks like a miniature or a model. Any idea of the actual size?

Alan

Most of the engravers that I have seen were all doing firearms. There is still a demand for high end engraving and inlay work. The better engravers have long wait times to get anything done by them.