Critique Request Gary's 1911

With approximately 6 months combined experience and a long way to go.
I finally built up the courage to engrave my
Brazilian made 1911. Using Mike Dubber's
great artwork . I hope to develope my own style and artwork in time. For now I hope I did not screw his up too bad.

I do not know how to rotate photos.

Looks great. And with only 6 months combined experience, i think you should be well pleased with yourself.

better than anything i did at the 6 month mark...

Thank You! I wish I would have began 20 or 30 years ago.

Thank You !

I just rotate my monitor. Wink wink.

Used to engrave plastic molds, trained to read upside down and backwards.

You obviously have good control over your graver at this point. Now for the hard one, that pesky pencil.
I must ask what your experience was like cutting this Springfield regarding metal hardness. I did a small job on a stainless one years ago and swore I'd never touch one again. That was some nasty tough steel.

I spent alot of time resharpening gravers to the point of great frustration. Then I started experimenting with different graver geometry. I like to use a 105 degree graver mostly. But I was continually breaking points, alot of times immediately. So , I found what seemed to work best for me was , I would take a 105 graver and add relieving facets of 5 more degrees then the heel. Getting the heel added at the proper angle took some extra experimenting with the GRS Dual angle fixture. After all that , I found that a Face angle of 60 degrees helped also in strengthening the point. In doing all of this , I found that it caused my engraving hand to be elevated a little more and I had a better chance of not smearing are erasing my transfers. I have also found that adjusting the air presure makes a difference . Duh ! All of this is part of which makes engraving fun for me.
So I guess to answer your question , I seemed to run into hard spots and some places seemed to cut better. Me not having alot of experience , I do not have
much to compare . I am looking forward to that metal I have heard of that cuts like butter, lol. Oh yea ! that pencil. Thats another story. Thanks,

This 1911 is carbon steel . I had it bead blasted to remove the original coating, then letter filled with a clear cerakote finish.

Nice job.

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