Raised, sculpted steel inlays

mitch

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these are a couple shots of a HiWall Winchester i did a long time ago -1998?, i ran across the prints in a box and scanned them. both the metal & wood were done by Dave Wilson of Ft. Collins, CO. certainly one of the finest pieces i've ever had the privilege to work on. it was a .257 Robts in a very tasteful, hybrid style somewhere between a Schuetzen and a sporter.

the sculpted leaves on the side panels are inlaid mild steel. with the rust blue, they have a very subtle, elegant effect.
 

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monk

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man, mitch-- that's just very cool looking, and done quite elegantly. what i like esp, is the amount of background compared to the engraving. no confusion for the eye. the layout is a perfect design for the shape of the gun. thanks for showing
 
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Dani Girl

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Now that's REALLY nice.

Did you use the japanese method of inlay pushing up the sides of the pocket and then tapping them back down around the dovetailed inlay?

Very inspiring, very elegant. Thank you very much for sharing.
 

mitch

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Did you use the japanese method of inlay pushing up the sides of the pocket and then tapping them back down around the dovetailed inlay?

no, the inlays were actually the very last thing done in a finish polished field (iirc, cavities were cut before final polish so any surface burs could be removed). the cavities were just extra deep (.015"ish?) with heavy undercuts. the inlays were precisely sawn out of about .040" mild steel, then filed to a perfect press fit (you can't count on even soft steel upsetting much to fill the cavity), with a very, very faint draft. the inlays were then set with a small sledgehammer (not really, but i did beat them like i'd caught them breaking into my house- NOTE: With inner walls of receiver well reinforced!!!). then they were sculpted in situ taking extra care not to scuff the surrounding surface.

also note, at the inside ends of the ribbon the steel was carved down below surface level to add a little extra depth before the transition up to the raised inlay.
 

Sam

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This is really stunning work, Mitch. I love the shape and the beautiful finish you've done. Absolutely first class in every regard.

Oh, and the lettering is just as fabulous! :thumbsup:
 

Jan Hendrik

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As I am currently busy doing quite a bit of gold and silver inlay in a knife project I can really appreciate the difficulty involved to inlay mild steel and the to sculpt it as well.
Masterfully done!!!!
 

mitch

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since several people have mentioned the lettering...

in the last few years i've been doing lettering and logo engraving for a local flutemaker. it's mostly pretty straightforward Roman & Copperplate styles, nice, but not fancy. just clean, crisp engraving on excellent instruments. one day we were making plans to meet and he mentioned showing my work to a couple jewelers he knows. they said it was the best lettering they'd ever seen. i gave him a couple castings of this HiWall and told him to show them to the jewelers. i said, "What I do for you is just the standard grade, everyday, journeyman quality work. This is the good stuff."

here's a not-great print of the lettering on the octagon barrel (and i just realized it was a .257 Robts, not a .25-06, but i did guess the right year!):
 

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Sam

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since several people have mentioned the lettering...

in the last few years i've been doing lettering and logo engraving for a local flutemaker. it's mostly pretty straightforward Roman & Copperplate styles, nice, but not fancy. just clean, crisp engraving on excellent instruments. one day we were making plans to meet and he mentioned showing my work to a couple jewelers he knows. they said it was the best lettering they'd ever seen. i gave him a couple castings of this HiWall and told him to show them to the jewelers. i said, "What I do for you is just the standard grade, everyday, journeyman quality work. This is the good stuff."

here's a not-great print of the lettering on the octagon barrel (and i just realized it was a .257 Robts, not a .25-06, but i did guess the right year!):

There are so many good engravers that can't do lettering. And so many that rely on computer fonts that end up looking like engraved computer fonts. This is super!!
 

mitch

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There are so many good engravers that can't do lettering. And so many that rely on computer fonts that end up looking like engraved computer fonts. This is super!!

with today's improved transfer techniques, i'm guilty of becoming more dependent on computer fonts, but tend to 'personalize' them as they're being cut. but for the lettering on this Winchester, none of the S-curved layouts would have allowed for using a computer (at least with my extremely limited graphics capabilities, anyway), so it was all drawn by hand.

i recently had a role in a big project for America's (winning!) Ryder Cup team. I just did the lettering- the cups & repoussé were done by others. "HAZELTINE" was my design and drawn by hand, but due to sheer volume (20+ names), everybody's names were actually laid out by a professional typesetter i've worked with over the years. (it looked better before somebody did a little overly enthusiastic buffing)
 

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