Continuing on copying

Hello everyone,

I am a brand new junior member (signed in two days ago). My name is Richard Cootmans, I am living a few miles from Antwerp in Belgium and my hobby is restoring antique guns.
While I was quickly «scanning» the café discussion points I came to the question whether or not to copy an engraving style. All of the pro’s and contra’s expressed by the café members made good sense in particular the simple fact that one has to start learning to engrave by copying ! But strangely, if a certain style develops from this copying it’s not called copying, it is called « influenced by …»!
What has not come up for discussion is the restoration of engraving on antique guns. If you have to do this then you are forced to copy the 18th or 19th century engraving which is still visible on the gun.( If you are lucky) And it does not matter if this original engraving is bad or good executed, you have to follow it in order to do a proper job ! As you can imagine this topic also has raised heated discussions. Anyway I regard this kind of restoration as perfectly reasonable and acceptable. Aren’t damaged important paintings painstakingly restored to equal the original condition as much as possible ?
And do you hear anything else than praises thereafter ?
I also have a question. After inlaying 24 carat gold lines, and using the flat graver to make it flush with the surrounding steel, how do you finish the gold in order to make it perfectly flat everywhere without scratching the steel ?
Best regards.
Richard

Richard,
If you will use the search feature on this page you will find a list of threads that deal with gold wire inlay and the steps used to accomplish it, many from the best engravers around today. basicly after you have carefulll brought the gold flush without damage to the surrounding base the gold is stoned or sanded to the same finish as the steel using the same abrasives. Care must be exercised that you use a block so that you do not lower the soft gold below the surounding metal. Fred

If you will use the search feature on this page you will find a list of threads that deal with gold wire inlay and the steps used to accomplish it, many from the best engravers around today. basicly after you have carefulll brought the gold flush without damage to the surrounding base the gold is stoned or sanded to the same finish as the steel using the same abrasives. Care must be exercised that you use a block so that you do not lower the soft gold below the surounding metal. Fred

Hello Fred,
Thanks for replying and the tip. Being new to this site I was still exploring all the possibilities and had not reached the "search" stage.
It is not that I am new to inlaying gold, but I allways had difficulties at the finishing state. You can see what I mean in attached picture "S&W38SafetyShieldWeb". The picture is part of a S&W .38 Safety second model which was too far gone and therefore I am using it as a practising model. (See second picture)
This is a great site !
Thanks again.
Richard