Experimenting with Banknote

mitch

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A client recently requested 'the type of scroll used on money' on a pistol with a patriotic theme ("The United States of America" & "Freedom Will Be Defended" were inlaid in platinum on the slide) and I figured it was long past time to spend a few hours studying banknote scroll with an eye toward actually engraving some. Like all engravers, I've seen it my entire life, but have never really taken a close, analytical look at it. Very interesting stuff...

It has a number of peculiarities, mostly stemming from being primarily designed & cut to print well, as opposed to just look pretty engraved in metal. The shade lines tend to be much finer, more numerous, and fairly consistent in width & depth (unlike our more usual deeper, tapering shade lines, which would hold too much ink). They also observe a realistic directional lighting angle (the conventional upper left, more or less 45°-45°), unlike traditional gun & knife decoration where shading is typically done without regard to any lighting angle, and lighter & darker just represent higher & lower areas. There are other subtle idiosyncrasies, as well.

Further complicating my task was trying to pin down an identifiable style. While it all has a certain recognizable quality (like when you're channel surfing and you can tell in two seconds that you've landed on a soap opera), largely due to the aforementioned shading techniques, it has a tremendous degree of variation. There's relatively little of what we know as full scrolls or leaves, and more snippets of classical ornament, too. My semi-educated assumption is that because there's not all that much scrollwork on US currency, and individual bills are issued sporadically, often years or decades apart, it's been designed & engraved by a slew of different people. It wouldn't surprise me if the US Bureau of Engraving didn't/doesn't even have anyone who specializes in banknote scroll, like they do for portraits & lettering. From what I can tell, there's just never been that much call for it in-house, so perhaps it falls to whomever is on staff when the need arises?

Given this disparate range of styles, I decided to kind of adapt my own leaf scroll to these shading techniques, while adding a few of the more typical signature ornaments. As many of you know, I'm one of the very few engravers who has much experience working in 3D, so I had a big leg up on the directional lighting aspect. As a side note, one of the trickiest parts about engraving in this mode is constantly remaining aware of the lighting angle as the vise spins around under the microscope. It takes some practice...

Note the two sets of right & left side images. The directional lighting completely changes the appearance of otherwise identical, mirror reversed, designs. With our usual shading techniques, these would be pretty much exactly the same from one side to the other.

It was a fun change of pace. One other thing- I grossly undercharged for the job, but instead of an engraving fee, I considered it a continuing education stipend.

:graver:
 

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John B.

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Thank you Mitch.
Some beautiful engraving and wonderful photographs.
Sorry you under charged for this jewel.
But that often happens when one ventures into untried territory.
As you say....chalk it up to experience and the satisfaction.
 

mdengraver

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Mitch great post, we all benefited and learned from it! Maybe your on to something! Your own style, no one says you can't engrave this way, kind of refreshing to the eye!
 

monk

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your observations are quite informative to one somewhat ignorant of the rules of doing the style, such as i. your actual work is delicate as all getout, yet very bold, and eye grabbing. thanks for sharing this.
 

mitch

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Mitch how do you achieve such a beautiful, consistent, even finish on your blank metal surfaces?

sorry for delayed reply, i overlooked your question. on flat surfaces like that, i just use a wood block with the appropriate grit paper (600 on this pistol) and make long continuous wipes as final passes. if i'm not doing any inlaying, i try to not disturb the maker's finish as much as possible. with luck, i often don't have to re-polish anything.
 

mitch

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John & Sam- over the years i did note the resemblance of Bob's work, especially his distinctive shading style, to banknote scroll and wondered how much of an influence that had on him. i would have liked to know his thoughts on the matter.

Brian- you're not kidding about 'very time consuming'! in addition to the many fine lines (probably 3x as many as i'd normally use), one of its quirks is the lack of virtually any plain blank white space. even light-toned areas have some shading, often just elongated 'line-dots', so that adds up, too. one moderate time-saver was cutting the background in parallel lines. banknote can't use a relieved & matted background because it would hold way too much ink, so it's typically cross-hatched to hold just enough ink to print solid. in a nod to that, i used parallel lines, but much deeper than would be needed for printing. down at the bottom, this shot shows the lined background a little better.
 

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mdengraver

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Mitch how much longer timewise as a percentage does the upper left light source technique take as apposed to a more stylised approach?
 

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