Gingko & Platinum Pin

This started as 'metal inlay question'.
If this is OK with the administration I'll change the title to the above and I'll post photos and comments as the work progresses.
I'm excited. It's something I've never done; and success or failure it'll be an interesting experience and I hope of interest to a broader audience.
Kevin P.

There are going to be a lot of self references as I discover with the assistance of many others where I'm going with this..
One of the first is that this is going to be a raised gold inlay.
As a wise person told me allow for the happy accident in your design. And that person could have added "allow for new information". I've been spending hours perusing the 'Tips Archive'; one thing leads to another.
Kevin P.

I posted my engraved gingko which is a simple scan. As I look at it 'live' the engraved lines gives the leaf volume; so, to emphasize that aspect I'm going to use 18 ga. gold for the inlay. A flat inlay wouldn't be very interesting. The next step would be to model the leaf before engraving it.
I know a little about chasing. I'll be chasing the top edge at least. The woman who taught me had a chasing tool referred to as a 'dog's leg'. The effect of the 'dog's leg' is to raise the edge. The tool gets under the metal and raises it up giving the look of the element rising from the surface. I'm going to try to post an image of this look. This is the plan to this point. I've never done anything like this. As we used to say in the service "your mouth may be overloading your a**"
Kevin P.

Addendum:
In the tips archives John B's 'Raised gold borders'; Sam A's 'sculpting punches' shows the scale of chasing tools on a micro scale; (so tools will have to be made) and Ray Cover's tip on inlay answers, or raises, some important considerations.
Ray's thumbnails are damaged.
The fried eggs photo on the previous post shows what the 'dog leg' tool does where the edge of the egg white comes up from the surface.
Kevin P.

After an interesting exchange with Jim Z. It came to me (duh!) that Pt silver is not he metal for this design. 14K Palladium white now heads the list. I can use a lighter gage of 14KW and 18 ga (.040) 24K for the leaf inlaying .010 and leaving .030 for the modeling of the 24K.
It's a really good thing to try to explain to another or many others what you have in mind. The process sometimes reveals that it was not very well thought out.
So that's one lesson. Another was in cutting that leaf in steel I had cut the outline and then thought to repolish the graver face. I did and when I continued the grave dove down into the metal (it's a visible divot upper middle). I had not checked the heel and in polishing the face eliminated the heel.
Kevin P.
"thousands of little things to learn"