Need some guidance

Hi everyone

I got this thing I’m working on and I need help.
It’s where the field meets the elements. [I’m not clear on my engraving terminology.]
The scale of things is a problem. When you do relief, how far down is that field? I’m just beginning to realize how little it takes. I haven’t seen anything like this ‘live’. I use Sam’s 120 to outline.

I don’t know how far down to go. I have on more than one occasion gone way too deep. At this juncture where the field and the line meet, what should it look like? Do you take the field down so that the field is level with the bottom of the cut made with the outline made with the ‘120’?
Rather than blindly continuing I’m hoping for some guidance.

I know I’m copying but I can’t express how much I’m learning. The more I do the more I understand where Lynton was going with his designs and the flow of his elements.
When I’ve got my ‘chops’ down, I’ll go out on my own.

As I read over the above, I'm wondering if it makes sense. Maybe the photo will help. I hope I got the image uploaded.
Kevin P.

I generally cut my relief to the same depth as the outline cuts.

But the question is how deep should your outline cuts be?

Ah, it's always so tricky, isn't it?

I normally cut the outline shallow on the first pass and then when I start removing background use a 120 and tip out toward the background.this will generally determine the depth for the background.On high relief work it is about .010 deep.

I've gone down to 1 mm and thought that it was pretty deep but I've seen others like carl bleiles and it looks as if he's gone farther. Just think if you keep on goin pretty soon your peice will be pierced. Also refer to sams tutorial on relief engraving. I'm new to this to...
Jeff

Hi kevin

It really depends on what it is that you want to acheive. There is no hard and fast rule.

Engraved line work like you are doing and the background releif dosn't need to be very deep. Just the depth of your lines or a little more. What is important is the consistancey of your background. Try to get it as even and flat as possible. After you have leveled it as best you can then you take a small rounded flat punch and punch it even to get rid of the high and low spots (sort of like a stippling motion)............or you can use a scraper

You can acheive a reasonabley flat background by making cuts in the background and when you remove it with a flat go to the bottom depth of the cuts.............or you can just guess it. Stippling will help even it out...........but only so much and it won't perform miracles.

For carving or deep relief work then go really deep .75mm it surprisingly deep and takes a lot to get that much metal out. You can go deeper if you want and the metal allows.

As I said........there are no hard and fast rules............just what you as the engraver want to acheive and how thick the metal is that you are working on.

Cheers
Andrew

Thanks Steve that's helpful; it's proportionate.
Kevin P.

Thanks Andrew It's the kind of advice I was looking for. I'm copying the comments to put in my personal archive. I appreciate the help.
Kevin P.

silverchip said:

I normally cut the outline shallow on the first pass and then when I start removing background use a 120 and tip out toward the background.this will generally determine the depth for the background.On high relief work it is about .010 deep.

Click to expand...

Thanks Silverchip, the specificity (.010) helps. In my language 1/4 mm. for high relief doesn't seem like much; but then that's why I'm asking.
The piece I was working on looked better to me before I took the photo.
It looks overwrought to me live. I have to learn when to stop along with 1000's of other things.
Kevin P.

jetta77 said:

I've gone down to 1 mm and thought that it was pretty deep but I've seen others like carl bleiles and it looks as if he's gone farther. Just think if you keep on goin pretty soon your peice will be pierced. Also refer to sams tutorial on relief engraving. I'm new to this to...
Jeff

Click to expand...

I started out with Sam's relief engraving. I'm trying to upload an image: my fifth attempt. I'm still trying to come up with shading.

That image looks really good. That's because it's Sam's. Sorry Sam; here's my version.
It's Monday!

kevin - i had wondered when i saw sam's copyright - then i thought maybe sam is just really protective of his designs! yours look pretty good to me too, though.

gary