Question: Hammer & Chisel

per

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Nov 24, 2009
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Location
MELBOURNE
Hello,

I am new to engraving and hope to able to learn enough hammer & chisel technique to be able to enhance some of my own projects such as woodworking planes, clock dials & general name plates and plaques.

I am impressed with some of the photos that have been posted on this site but was wondering if any one can point me to some photos of work done with hammer & chisel?

Regards

Paul
 

Ron Smith

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Apr 6, 2007
Messages
1,455
Paul,

Up until the last few years, before I lost my thumb, I did only hammer and chisel work along with the hand burin. If you have my book, all of the work in it was done in that fashion. It is refreshing to see someone willing to endure the challenge of using only the most basic tools. I wish you luck and success.

I still love those tools although I cannot use the hand burin very successfully. The pneumatic tools allow me the priveledge of still being able to engrave, although now the eyes are becoming an increasing challenge.

There is a considerable difference in the learning curve using the hammer and chisel and burin without power. If you can stick it out and stay with it long enough to get over the drugery of practice until you gain perfect control of the tools, it is very gratifying and what I like is my ability to do it with my own bare hands, no assistance, just me and the steel.

Welcome to the forum and keep us posted on your progress. Don't be shy in asking questions.

Ron S
 

Sam

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Hello Paul, and welcome to the Cafe! If you search our Gallery for work done by Weldon Lister you'll see some good examples of hammer & chisel engraving. Weldon recently started using a pneumatic handpiece for some of his work, but I believe he still uses traditional methods as well.

Here's an example of my hammer & chisel work from many years ago:




Whew...that was a long time ago!

~Sam
 

Joe

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Jun 2, 2007
Messages
91
Location
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
Hello Paul,
If you haven't yet seen them, there is a set of instructional vedeos/dvds by Lynton McKensie in which H&C are used. I still play them and others occasionally while I'm engraving. There is a wealth of good information in the videos.
Best wishes for success and looking forward to seeing your progress.
 

per

Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Messages
7
Location
MELBOURNE
Thanks for all your supportive feedback guys. It looks like the work produced by the H&C is just as delicate as the pneumatic tools. Ill follow up on the advice and do ... a lot more practice!
 

Sam

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Yes, the finest work imaginable can be done with hand tools. The work I posted was cut with h&c and the fine detail was hand-pushed with a square hand graver. Pneumatic tools will give you a big advantage when it comes to the learning curve and they'll cut much faster than h&c in most cases.

Have fun!
 

Andrew Biggs

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Nov 10, 2006
Messages
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Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
Hi Paul and welcome to the cafe

If you join FEGA (Firearms Engravers Guild Of America) at www.fega.com you will receive the Engraver magazine 4 times a year. In issue #86 (Jan, Feb, March 2010) there is a major article about Claus Willig from Germany with some stunning photos of his work, all done with hammer and chisel.

Also Martin Strolz from Austria has a photo of his demonstration plate where he taught at the Grand Masters........all done with hammer, chisel and burin. In a similar article there are more samples of hammer and chisel work by Johan Singer.

And of course wonderful examples of engraving by other people like Marty Rabeno and Mike Dubber that all started out with hammer and chisel.

If you are lucky there may even be some back issues showing Joe Rundells fabulous gun that he won several awards with........using hammer and chisel.

So it is alive and well and still being practiced by some outstanding artisans all over the world.

Cheers
Andrew
 

engraver joe

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
13
If you go to bluebookinc.com then to firearms and then to "Gun of the Week"you'll see a gun the did using only hand-tools engraverjoe
 

monk

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per: welcome to this place. if you look at the top of the forum page, you will see the word "search". try typing "hammer & chisel" in there. that search may lead you to a lot of fotos & other info on the subject. most folks today use the power toys as they are faster. but as mr. alfano mentioned, it's the skill one brings to the tool, not the other way round. good luck in your pursuit of this most fascinating and rewarding art.
 
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