About bulino

I recently was on YOUTUBE,COM watching one and several demonstration of "Bulino" and all the sudden I was wondering what exactly is "Photo realistic hand engraving". One of this demonstration amuse and annoy me greatly, someone using both air engraving and liner. Having be train in Belgium where liner tool are/were commonly use for animal I can assure you that no Belgium engraver would use that technique and call it bulino and I do not think that Belgium engraver would pretend to do a photo realistic engraving but a stylization of the animal they are depicting. Furthermore I do not think that any Italian engraver would call it bulino either. So what do you think is bulino? Do you think that the word can be use without any restriction and that it is what ever the engraver want it to be, like English scroll (lol)?

I think it means a single v point hand graver picking out bits of metal, or making short cuts. Power would be ok for the cuts.

I call my speedy stippled bulino 'power bulino' which is kind of stretching it a bit.

Thierry,Bulino to me is a single point hand push graver to create lines or dots. J.J.

In Italian, bulino is the tool itself, as in bulino normale (normal graver). The term bulino has been rather carelessly used to describe any scene or portrait engraving, and the term has stuck. So right or wrong, good or bad, it seems like it's here to stay.

So for me at least the question is what was "photo realistic" engraving called before the term Bulino started to be used widely?

I sometimes refer to parts of my engraving as bulino style but I use a more heavy handed approach in hopes of making it more visible from wider angles, etc...so I think I should likely refer to it as Lotadot work. And for the most part I use the technique for shading on sculpted work and subtle shading elsewhere.

Jan,A good example of photo realistic engraving would be Italian master engraver Firmo Fracassi. J.J.

JJ Roberts said:

Jan,A good example of photo realistic engraving would be Italian master engraver Firmo Fracassi. J.J.

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Indeed!
To answer your question Jan, it was not call anything because it did not existed. It is fair to say that Italian create "Photo realistic engraving" until just a few years ago (maybe forty years or so) game scenes were highly stylized actually some animals were hardly recognizable. Italians, maybe inspired by photography, start using microscopic dot, varying the density of this dots to define space and subjects similarly to pixels on a black and white old fashion (film) picture.
As Sam mention, bulino, is the name of a tool not the name of the technique, in Italy it is call punti (I am not sure about the spelling), Italian like Gianfranco Pedersoli (not sure!!) sometime use a mix of microscopic lines and dots, he use the same bulino. In Belgium and France bulino are call echoppe, they are very similar in shape but the cutting geometry is different.

I too use much heavier hand when I do punti, American customer want to see what they look at without having to play with the light, I also think that it is more durable especially if the item is going to be use, I do not think that many of Fracassi works are ever taken in the field.

Intresting information, but the fact is that its here to stay, the only constant is change, cant stop the river just flow with it.

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Thierry Duguet said:

Indeed!
To answer your question Jan, it was not call anything because it did not existed. It is fair to say that Italian create "Photo realistic engraving" until just a few years ago (maybe forty years or so) game scenes were highly stylized actually some animals were hardly recognizable. Italians, maybe inspired by photography, start using microscopic dot, varying the density of this dots to define space and subjects similarly to pixels on a black and white old fashion (film) picture.
As Sam mention, bulino, is the name of a tool not the name of the technique, in Italy it is call punti (I am not sure about the spelling), Italian like Gianfranco Pedersoli (not sure!!) sometime use a mix of microscopic lines and dots, he use the same bulino. In Belgium and France bulino are call echoppe, they are very similar in shape but the cutting geometry is different.

I too use much heavier hand when I do punti, American customer want to see what they look at without having to play with the light, I also think that it is more durable especially if the item is going to be use, I do not think that many of Fracassi works are ever taken in the field.

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Interesting information.
I can understand your frustration that the name of a tool is being used to describe a technique. Unfortunately if no other popular term arises to describe photo realistic engraving then the term "Bulino" is going to stay stuck in the minds of both engravers as well as the public.
With my extremely limited understanding of your language a rough translation of the word punti would be "dots". So a relatively good english term would then be pointillism. However very fine lines are often used to create photo realistic engravings as well so we have a dilemma as both dots and lines may be used to create photo realistic engraving.
So do we dare try and invent a new term that better describes this type of work or do we grudgingly admit defeat and accept the term "Bulino"?

I am sorry if I gave you the impression that the name of the technique was important, I did not use the word "bulino" in reference to the tool but in reference to the technique (see how confusing it can be) as it is the name the most commonly use.
It seems to me that engravers are as confuse as clients when it come to that technique and I thought that this thread would make clearer to everyone what is this technique about and what need to be achieve. This say I think that "photo realistic hand engraving" is a much better name for this style as it could actually speak to the public and define itself perfectly.

Many of you will note that I commented on this issue in my engraving glossary. Below is how I defined "bulino."

BULINO – The Italian word for burin (hand graver), The term “bulino engraving” is used by some to describe a style of engraving scenes and figures popularized by contemporary Italian arms engravers. This technique is executed using a finely pointed burin that is used to create very fine dot patterns. The resultant engraving is similar in appearance to pictures that have been printed using a half tone screen and can present a highly realistic image.
A more detailed explanation of the bulino technique by engraver Steve Lindsay can be found at this link: http://www.engravingtraining.com/private/dots.htm

As I understand it, the term used by Italian gun engravers is "puntini." Punti is literally points. If there is an Italian engraver reading this, I hope he or she will correct me if I am wrong.

A little background, from my perspective, on the word bulino, as used in the English speaking gun trade. In the early 1970s, my brother, Carl began engraving scenes and figures in highly realistic detail. For lack of a better word we referred to that work as "banknote" engraving because it used very fine lines and dots like the images found on currency. I believe that the French speaking engravers of Belgium use the term "taille douce." In the late 1970s, Italian gunmaker and author, Mario Abbiatico published his first treatise on Italian gun engraving entitled, Grande Incisioni Su Armi D'Oggi (Great engravings on today's weapons). The text was in Italian. I first saw the book at the Las Vegas Antique Arms Show, as I remember, in 1978. All of the engravers there were fascinated by the images in the book. None of us were fluent in Italian, at the time, but we often saw the word "bulino" in the picture captions. Not long later, Abbiatico came out with his second book Modern Firearm Engravings. It was essentially the same book but in English. Therein, he referred to the photo-realistic scenes and figures as "bulino" engraving, meaning engraving executed with the bulino. Most of us engravers, as well as collectors and the writers at Shooting Sportsman began using "bulino" to describe ultra-fine, realistic engraving. This somewhat incorrect use of the term has become commonplace.

I have often noted that engraving beginners who frequent the hand engraving forums, immediately want to learn or try "bulino" engraving before they can cut a straight line. These are folks who have never seen an actual puntini engraving on a gun or knife, and have no idea of the number of dots or time needed to create photo-realistic detail of the kind represented by Italians Fracassi, Pedersoli, et al or American Katherine Plumer.

Down through history, some sayings bear threads of truth, such as, 'When a word becomes corrupt in usage, it is impossible to correct.' Engraving is no exception!

Yup, "oxidizing" silver is actually sufiding it. Silver oxide is whitish gray - NOT black. Silver sulfide is black.

Silver "soldering" is not soldering. It is done at a temperature range that takes it into brazing.

A "square graver" is, and has always been a graver blank to me. From that square blank you make either a flat or or a "V" graver.

Dozens of others...


Brian

Ron Spokovich said:

Down through history, some sayings bear threads of truth, such as, 'When a word becomes corrupt in usage, it is impossible to correct.' Engraving is no exception!

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years ago i'd written a letter to the editor of the Denver Post and the morning it was to run a friend called up and said, "I would've thought you knew the difference between 'stanch' and 'staunch'." (in the context of 'stanch the flow of blood') i indignantly said, "I do!". an oh-so-helpful, but not-so-literate newspaper staffer had 'corrected' my proper usage of the word. i called the editor and she readily admitted that 'stanch' is the more correct, preferred usage, but was being overtaken by 'staunch' simply by so many people using it in error. misusing "career", instead of "careen" is another.