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Hello all the flourish forum members .As promised I to Erica, Im opening a topic where I will try to show you how I engravelettering:I will explain here how I engrave lettering on metal. This work is not much different from «intaglio » engraving on copper plates for printing . Its an ornamental engraving on weapons,watches, knives, jewelry... an endless list, in fact! All the materials that are less hard than theburins (the engraving tool) that we are using can be engraved.1 The tools for lettering :1.1 The gravers :The gravers used for lettering have several shapes. In order to obtain a cut that looks like apenstroke, the engraver uses a flat graver, a square, or a lozenge (with a V point), a roundedburin, or an onglette (about the shape of a fingernail).The gravers are made from hard steel, HSS steel or very hard materials like tungsten carbide.They are sharpened and their edges highly polished . This is a very important point forlettering : there is no ink in the cuts , but when the graver is polished , it provides a nice flarecut that reflects light only with one angle .If the graver was not polished, the cut will have alot of micro scratches, the light is reflected at many angles and you will loose contrast.For engraving soft metals ( gold ,silver) we can use a hand pushed burin with a wood andelFor cutting the harder materials ( hardened steel of knives or rifles) we need more power thancould give a hand push burin .We use a hammer to hit a chisel . This chisel has the sameshape as the hand push gravers.Engraving letters with a chisel and hammer is not very easy. Especially with round letters ,you have to stand up and turn around your work while doing the circular cuts of the letters.These days, most engravers are pneumatic gravers . These air-powered gravers provide asmuch power than a chisel/hammer and can be held with the right hand. The left hand is usedto turn the vise holding the work .Here are my air gravers , they are same sized as my hand push gravers.1.2 Holding the work :A very important tool is the rotative ball-vise . The item to be engraved is clamped on thevise , and you turn the vise as you are cutting the round letter . The right hand does not movevery much : just to guide the burin , following the guiding lines of the sketch . The cuts aremade from right to left.Customers often ask for engravings on convex or concave surfaces, so we have to varycontinually the cutting angle of the graver while guiding it in the curves.If you want to know what I mean you can wrap a sheet of paper around a glass or anythingelse round ( 2 or 3 cm of diameter), and write on it with your penThe spheric pedestal of the vise allows to change the angle of the work and helps to keep thegraver at the proper cutting angle.Here is some lettering I did on the barrel of a gun( hard steel that was cut with a carbidegraver), if you look closer you would recognize the font of the computer : Palace scriptHere you can see my work space, while cutting some letters on the barrel of a huntingcarbine. Notice the left hand, that turns the rotating vise and pushes the metal onto the graver ,specially when cutting round letters . Engraving is done by both hands ; plus, in this case,with my foot, which controls the flow of air which feeds the airgraver by a pedal.The work is done under a microscope ( that is a great help, when your vision changes andyour arms become too short to read without glasses!1.3 Accessories : Scribe, dividers, jaugesI will explain below how to transfer a text from the computer to the working area .However there are many other methods , the quickest is to write directly in the metal .As using a nib and ink is not possible. We trace the guiding lines and center the text withdividers. The letters are traced with a 5H pencil sharpened to a point or with a scribe . Tomake the text more visible we put before a thin layer of transfering wax on the metal.The guiding lines are traced with a marking gauge . Like most of my tools , mine is homemade and marked.We engravers love to sharpen all the tools in our workspace!