Phil Coggan
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Here's a couple of plates i've dug out. They were engraved in 1982. The smallest was my very first attempt at dots.
You have to bare in mind that I had only been "Messing" about for a very short period, and had not yet been able to make a graver that would cut properly, at this point I still had'nt.
There were as far as I knew, no books about on how to engrave, so it was a matter of, make a tool, grind it, temper it and see if it worked. If it did'nt, try again.
I was not familier with scroll design in fact the St.George scroll engraving was a VERY bad attempt at an Italian scroll that I had found a picture of.
I was desperate to become an engraver and at this time I had engraved on mainly practice plates.
I sent these plates to a few gun companies but had no luck with getting work, and I don't blame them, ok, the scenes were ok, but the scroll leaves much to be desired.
One very well known gun company sent them back saying that they thought this work was "Photo etched" and seamed to imply that I was pulling a fast one!
This really got to me, after all that work I put into them, for someone to think that.
I wrote back explaining the technique from start to finish. It appeared that they had never seen "Dot Work". They apologised and invited me to visit them, we got on well and later there was a lot of work from them.
Anyway, here they are!
Phil
You have to bare in mind that I had only been "Messing" about for a very short period, and had not yet been able to make a graver that would cut properly, at this point I still had'nt.
There were as far as I knew, no books about on how to engrave, so it was a matter of, make a tool, grind it, temper it and see if it worked. If it did'nt, try again.
I was not familier with scroll design in fact the St.George scroll engraving was a VERY bad attempt at an Italian scroll that I had found a picture of.
I was desperate to become an engraver and at this time I had engraved on mainly practice plates.
I sent these plates to a few gun companies but had no luck with getting work, and I don't blame them, ok, the scenes were ok, but the scroll leaves much to be desired.
One very well known gun company sent them back saying that they thought this work was "Photo etched" and seamed to imply that I was pulling a fast one!
This really got to me, after all that work I put into them, for someone to think that.
I wrote back explaining the technique from start to finish. It appeared that they had never seen "Dot Work". They apologised and invited me to visit them, we got on well and later there was a lot of work from them.
Anyway, here they are!
Phil
Last edited: