Damascening an Elk with an Artisan

Thanks for your reply on the re-melt, Barry!

Barry, That is Beautiful, Like already voiced, Thanks for sharing the process! Dwayne

Barry,
Great job and thanks for the tutorial.
Rick

Thanks guys, and Rick, my old bench buddy,what have you been doing with yourself since the Churchill class? I hear you have been doing some very fine work.

Barry,
Working on some knives for the AKI show in San Diego, in the photos section of igraver you can see one of the knives I've been working on. Appreciated your Damascening photos, I have yet to have tried but think I will now.
Rick

Thank you for your input regarding tool choice when working on curved surfaces, Barry!

By the way, I enjoyed reading your background experience recently posted on the Lindsay Forum. I do like to read this kind of thing, as it gives a fuller picture of the artist. So I note you have paid your dues in all the realms from push and bulino, through hammer to air assist, and currently are using Lindsay parallel geometry. I too like parallel heel. In the days when I was stumbling around in the dark, hand sharpening was my only option, and it seems to me that parallel heel is what you end up with when hand sharpening, if you use feel to lay the side of a Vee graver on the hone and give it a wee wipe? Trouble is, I was never very good at this and did not have the experience to know when I was on the right track. Then, enter the world of the current forums, and all is laid bare ... a variety of tool point geometry is set out for our study, on the Lindsay web, or if you like, on Sam A's DVD, and in studying these and others we can advance with confidence, and if we wish to make use of the various sharpening fixtures, we can at least know that we will end up with crisply honed tool points that should produce excellent results in the hands of a skilled engraver.

There are fine engravers who choose to sharpen and finish the graver by hand and test it by feel. Am I right, that many of those experienced engravers put in the hours and years to the extent that their 'touch' with the burin was sufficient for them to know that everything was just right, or perhaps not, in the first second or two, and whether or not to go back to the stone for another wipe or two. I am thinking of Ken and Marcus Hunt whom I have watched do this, and possibly Ron Smith (?), certainly my pal in Scotland Neil Oliver, and last but by no means least, the great bulio artists of "Creative Arts", with whom I had the undeserved privilege of a one week's class when they were in America. So we can say that a developed sense of feel is a great feedback as to whether your tool is 'right' for you. Now does that mean that precisely controlled angles and setting are then in some way inferior. I think not, and I conducted a friendly experiment with one of the great "Creative Arts" teachers. As a group of three, their class was a ton of fun. With one master choosing to do the main cutting and demonstrating .... of course working only with hand sharpened burin and a 25mm dia x10 Ziess lupe ( their glass of choice), we could watch on a big screen TV then set to on our own. All the while the instructors would cruise the class, good-naturedly herding us, as a sheep dog would herd a flock in the right direction, often asking us to step aside while they cut into our practice plates on, say, a duck's eye, leaving us a little area to take home and study later under the microscope for future reference ... great stuff! Well, one of the first things they would do was to take your burin and try its cutting action, and in my case, roll the eyes, and haul me over to the grindstone, where in a few moments they would rough grind the burin, then a little bit of stoning, testing, finally saying, "There, this is now cutting!" Great, thought I, I will keep this for future reference, but when I looked under the 'scope, the point looked like a dog's breakfast! However, the important thing was that burin cut well, and the Italian master's feedback on geometery was 'feel', based on a huge experience. So as a reference experiment, I mounted the burin he had just prepared, on the sharpening fixture and laid its surfaces flat and in so doing read the average angles of the facets. I noted those angles, and then ground up a second burin, using the sharpening fixture. This done I called my teacher back, and asked him how this new burin worked in his hands? He took a few cuts, smiled and said "perfect"!

So in conclusion, there is no substitute for developing a ton of experience if you are a hand sharpener, until the feel of the tool becomes second nature to you, and you will also alter it a bit with confidence to suit the job ( as the Hunt's say), at the same time there is no disadvantage in precision sharpening either, and it has the advantage of reproducing accurately tool points that you like.

All of that said, concentric circle practice on a half inch copper pipe will give you a nice rolli-coaster ride, and let me see if I can maintain an even depth of cut. So back to the bench!

best

Rod

Thank you very much Rick and Rod. The real expert on this is of course Ken Hunt who will be teaching next month. If you are there, he will have a wealth of info on the subject. Most of what I know about it comes from my trips to visit him and Marcus.
This technique is common all across europe.