A brief essay on practice, starting out, and thoughts on the profession

Southern Custom

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This is a little essay/post I'd written over on the "The Engravers Notebook" Facebook forum. Sam asked that I post it here as well. I'd written this mainly for the benefit of the large number of beginners on Facebook but I sometimes forget that there are many here lurking in the background as well. Here is that post along with the two accompanying photos of an old plate and some new work:

"Someone here asked about practice plates. The fact that you are using them means you are on the right track. Be SURE and date them. You'll use them to gauge progress later.
It should go something like this: Engrave your first practice plate. When you look at it you'll want to toss it in the rubbish bin. Keep it. Engrave the second plate and the cuts are getting cleaner. Somewhere between #10 and #15 or month 3 you'll look at the plate and think "YES! I've got this! Time for a pistol!" Mark and date this plate. At this point stifle your joy and refrain from taking grandpa's Colt from the safe.
3 months later you'll finish another plate and say YES. Now I think I REALLY have it! Your wife will agree. Facebook will applaud you. Take out the last marked plate to compare and it will hit you, "Holy crap I didn't have a clue back then! Glad I held off on the Colt".
Again, stifle your enthusiasm. Leave gun in safe. Repeat process.
By the 5th or 6th "Lightbulb" moment you should be cutting Spydercos or Buck knives. Summon all your willpower and leave that gun in the safe until you can sit down with a working professional gun engraver or have found one qualified to honestly critique you're work by email or photos. If all is right in the world he'll approve your sketches and You are off to the races. If not, you are likely close and your new mentor can give you some pointers to straighten you out. (Joining FEGA will offer you access to any number of fine craftsmen willing to help.)
Now you go home, take out the Colt and realize, wait a minute, there are a million nooks and crannies and a long round barrel to work around and everything you've cut to this point has been flat.
Put the gun away. Drive to Home Depot and buy some 3/4" mild steel tubing. Transfer some scrolls and start cutting again. Suddenly your graver won't stay put and keeps slipping. Rethink everything you thought you knew and start cutting your practice barrels. Inexpensive brass cone shaped plumb bobs are good as well.
When the slips stop its time to take out the Colt. Look it over very hard. Now put it away, again. Drive your local Academy and buy a Bond Derringer or a Ruger Single action and dive in. You'll make mistakes. You will thank me later for the advice to leave the Colt untouched for now. There are issues with cutting a gun that never even crossed your mind. Use this gun to find out what they are. Keep this gun. Think of it as your first practice plate with consequences.
Now that you can cut a gun, you'll spend the next few years learning to prep and polish them and develop the problem solving skills inherent to gun engraving that only come with experience.
I say all this not to discourage you or to preach, rather, I offer it a realistic view of the progression you might take and a prescription for avoiding the headache and heartache that many would be engravers experience. I can speak with authority as I've been there and made every mistake one can make along the way. Yes, I've learned from them but there are a few mistakes that I could have avoided all together. In particular there is a beater 1873 Winchester out there covered with something resembling leaves that I'd pay to take back, and a Bond Derringer deep in the safe that I'm waiting for a chance to sand out or destroy. When I cut each of those guns, I and everyone I knew were applauding my work and saying "Isn't it about time you cut a gun?" And so I did. In hindsight, I and my friends and family were in no way qualified to judge what constitutes quality hand engraving. One glance at my sketches and any half baked gun gouger would have stopped me in my tracks and set me straight to the betterment of the craft.
Remember that one day you may become a professional and I speak from experience when I say that trying to erase the tracks of poorly cut work from the historical record is increasingly difficult these days. The best solution is easy in principle but hard in practice. Strive to keep your ego in check and let a mentor/instructor/master guide you. Don't let the peanut gallery of engraving fans on Facebook convince you that you are something you are not. Pats on the back are encouraging but meaningless from the wrong folks and to your task at hand.
I've been on the jewelry bench for 30 years. I've used engravers proficiently for 20 of them, and I've cut steel for around 7 years now. It's only in the last few years that I feel I've started coming into my own as an engraver and have anything to offer in the way of advice. If I'd had proper instruction I could have cut my learning time in half and likely have avoided many costly mistakes.
I offer this with hope that none of you ever have to experience the awful feeling you get when you realize the gun you cut 6 months ago was utter rubbish and you can't take it back. There are no second chances with gun engraving. The gun you cut with your name attached will be around long after you are gone.
I feel we are in a renaissance period of engraving with new styles and techniques emerging every day and the more of us practicing the better. But just as quality work enhances our image as a whole, a few bad apples spoil the bunch and poorly engraved guns and knives reflect on us as artists and craftspeople. When you hear someone say that engraving will destroy a gun's value, this is one of the reasons why. Most people have never held a sample of fine engraving art in their hands. Do your best to produce a product that will elevate you as an artist and in turn, engraving as a whole. Remember that engraving itself is not an art. It is merely the method by which we apply our art to metal objects. Work hard on learning to cut but work harder on learning to be an artist in metal. Good luck and keep the chips flying and your pencils sharp."
image.jpg this is a plate from 2010 or so when I thought I was ready for the Colt in the safe. (Thank goodness I held off) image.jpg This is a current 2017 project. Still a student but confident in the fundamentals and my work.
 

Roger Bleile

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Layne,

That is an outstanding essay and should be read (and taken to heart) by every aspiring gun engraver. I can say "been there-done that" over 40 years ago when there was no Internet, GRS Training Center, forums, or instructional manuals or DVDs. For me, I was fortunate to have a brother who was artistic and a skilled tool maker. He began engraving about three years ahead of me so I had some instruction. In those days my brother, Carl had no experience teaching others so my lessons were pretty rough and ready partly because he was still feeling his way along. In the intervening years he has become an excellent instructor.

Almost every day, I see pictures of butchered guns proudly posted on the Internet by folks who jumped the gun and started on a gun before they were ready for prime time. They would probably tell me "It's my gun so if it's not up to par there's no harm." The fact is that every butchered gun will eventually find its way to the market where the gun's degraded value will convince more people that having a gun engraved is money ill spent. That effects all of us.

One of the problems Carl and I had in the early days was trying to discern what a well engraved gun should look like. With none of the aforementioned resources available, all we could do was go to gun shows and look at all of the engraved guns we could find and try to memorize what the scrollwork looked like. The problem was that we were looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good stuff was mostly on English and European shotguns that were out of our reach financially and artistically. The bad stuff was obvious to anyone with an eye for ascetics but the ugly ones were usually well cut but the designing was poor.

Even today, one can Google "engraved guns" and they will find the same good, bad, and ugly. Often the good stuff is so advanced that the beginner has no idea where to start, yet the ugly ones are usually simpler and easier for the beginner to copy. That is why these engraving forums are so helpful if properly used, though there is no substitute for personal mentoring. Fortunately, FEGA and the forums are a big help in networking.

I want to thank Layne again for his well thought out essay. Read it-believe it.
 

Southern Custom

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Thanks for adding that to the mix Roger. How right you are that until recently the information available on engraving was scarce. I came into this just as the information stream on the web was gaining steam. Unfortunately I was a year or so behind in searching out good resources and suffered because of it. When one works in a vacuum, our brains can convince us that what we see on our practice plate is a dead match for that beautiful Purdy we saw a month ago. I always say "you don't know what you don't know"
Also true is your observation about the engraving at gun shows. The bottom line is that it's hard to find an example of good engraving because those guns are all tucked away in their owners safes. The gun show fodder is generally bottom of the barrel and again, if that's your sample material, "you don't know what you don't know"
It was those butchered guns you mention getting so much applause on Facebook that prompted me to write this. Again, not to dissuade anyone from taking up the graver but to help folks that are in my old shoes avoid the heartache I experienced. Also quite frankly to offer a realistic picture so many don't waste their time. All too often in today's instant gratification/information overload society, I feel people often expect too much too fast and if many knew that, truth be told, it might very well take several years before they are truly ready to cut something of consequence, then they may never take this up at all. That's neither a good or bad thing but it would certainly be of benefit to have a full picture of the endeavor one is about to undertake before spending thousands on equipment. Or just as bad, trying to spend as little as possible but expecting good results.
I'll stop now as I feel another rant coming on.
 

Sam

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Thanks for posting this, Layne. It definitely needs to be read by every engraver, especially those starting out. It's good info for all of us.

As for social media and forums, sometimes I just get a sick feeling when I see people praising crappy work. In their defense, they don't know it's crappy. Those that do know simply don't comment. There's one engraver in particular who often boasts he's old school using hammer & chisel and touting push engraving, and I've never seen a single example that does not devalue the gun it's on. And the oohs and ahhhs, back pats and attaboys he gets also hurt the trade because it sends a false message of what's good and what's horrid. Or maybe I'm overreacting? I don't know....probably am.

I feel a rant coming on too, so I'll thank you again and close off :)

~Sam

By the way, I really like your example of the engraving on the slide.
 

Southern Custom

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Thanks Sam. The slide is coming along nicely. I
don't feel you're over reacting at all. Youtube seems to be a guiding influence on many people today. The issue there is that what we do looks absurdly simple to someone who's never held a graver. So we have a country that's flooded with firearms and apparently a lot of would be engravers that just want to put some swirly stuff on their gun, and now the availability of just enough information to get in trouble. Cue the perfect storm of the approving wife and Facebook "Likes" and how does it weigh on the rest of us.
At it's best Facebook is a valuable place for insight if one knows who to ask and where to look. At it's worst it promotes bad practices. Very few people have the patience for the serious research though as many younger folks (I can't believe I just said younger folks) get their information in brief snapshots, one instagram pic or Facebook post at a time. This is apparent when I see questions asked that are answerable with 5 minutes of pointed internet research.
I hate to admit that I've purposely not steered Facebook tire kickers here. I figure they'll find us if the will is there. For some reason, the Cafe forum seems to be self regulating. Maybe it's all of us curmudgeonly craftsman that don't suffer fools lightly that weeds them out. There's something of a professional and serious atmosphere here that's refreshing and very un-facebook like. A haven of sorts. At the risk of sounding elitist, I do believe that the apprentice should have to sweep the floor for a year before touching the sharp scary tools. I mean that figuratively of course but the sentiment is there.
The bottom line of all this is that a proliferation of badly cut firearms does nothing to elevate our art form or us as craftsmen. Not speaking out won't help anyone but offering unsolicited advice is rarely welcome. Years ago I desperately needed a kick in the seat and welcomed it when it finally came and I was put in my place. Unfortunately so many Facebook/instagram/youtube posts are looking for one thing. Approval in the form of Likes.
I suppose you just help where you can and offer examples of what sound design and workmanship look like. Those that get it will get it and those that don't likely never would. Barry Hands once offered a closing argument over a similar discussion one night over dinner in Vegas. His view was that at heart, anyone involved in this really wants to produce the best work they can. Most of them just don't know how or what that should look like and it's up to those of us with some experience to pass on what we know. The old adage, "Learn from those that know more than you and teach those that know less" certainly applies.
I'm feeling particularly curmudgeonly now and very close to saying something like
"Back when I was a young apprenctice...." so I think I'll switch to cat videos for a bit.
 

Roger Bleile

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"There's one engraver in particular who often boasts he's old school using hammer & chisel and touting push engraving, and I've never seen a single example that does not devalue the gun it's on."

I'm pretty sure I know the You tube commando you are referring to. He does all he can to spread the fiction that "if its not hammer and chisel, its not hand engraving." Unfortunately I have run into too many people that have seen his videos that told me "if you don't cut with hammer and chisel its cheating" as if gun engraving is some sort of competition.
 

dogcatcher

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I have read the original post several times, even saved it and a few of the comments for future reads. I am not an engraver, never will be more than at the hobby level. But as I read through it, I thought about the other hobbies I have, woodcarving, leather carving and callmaking. As I was relating this thread to them, I laughed out as I thought of the thousands of dollars of dollars worth of leather and wood that has been wasted by some of the new "experts" in those 3 hobbies.
 

horologist

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Layne,

Thanks for posting this as I don’t do facebook, from the sound of it I am not missing anything. Your excellent advice can be applied to many crafts and I have saved your essay to re-read every time I think of “taking out the Colt”.
It will be a while but I can’t imagine a better place to post my work than this forum. Honest,clear critiques, with a remarkably good signal to noise ratio, and all from some of the finest engravers in the world.

Troy
 
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