A little more practice

[KCSteve]

I notice a lot of new people are feeling bad about posting their work so I figured it was time to post some more of mine and make them feel better.

Got a little bit of practice time last night so I was playing with a few things. Snapped a real quick shot this morning and uploaded it from my ultra-portable computer where I don't have anything to rotate it with so you'll have to cock your head to the side. Sorry 'bout that!

First I was practicing some of the shading line sets (upper right of the 'A'), then some flare-cut leaves. Ron, using my round-bottom graver to hollow out what would otherwise be flat spots between the flare cuts really does make a major difference in the look. Not that I really doubted you, but seeing it in person really drives it home.

The 'A' I just doodled on to try the technique again. Took my own advice from the last attempt and used a fine Sharpie to put on guide lines so I stayed parallel on the background lines and the advice from the thread to deepen the shadow. Both things made major improvements. As soon as I get some time I'll have to do this one for real (actually laying out a clean oval and 'A') and send a little surprise to my sister-in-law.

My schedule is finally opening up a bit again - felt really good to get an hour at my bench. :big grin:

Ok - all you other guys who didn't want to 'compete' with Marcus and Phil - just post your pictures here and they should look good.

 

[soj]

That looks good Steve, you got those lines straight this time!

 

[Jim Sackett]

Hi Steve

Nice doodeling The lines look good evenly spaced and straight. How did you do the shadow? It may be just the pic quality but it looks like you did a little stippeling or punching. Im just cerious. I'm going to try a round graver on the flare cuts one of these days.

Jim

 

[KCSteve]

Jim

The shadow is just stippling. After cutting the outline of the 'A' I drew a quick boundary for the shadows and then stippled them.

For the background lines I used a combination of techniques to get them relatively evenly spaced.

Partly I tried to put the previous line at the same spot on my graver and partly I tried to evenly space the Sharpie lines when I drew them and wound up mostly cutting along the sides of them. If there was something for scale you'd see the spacing on the lines is very close to the line width of an ultra-fine point Sharpie.

The background lines I did last and they stop just short of the letter and the shadows.

As for the round, if you have the Lindsay template system the one for the Round Bottom graver shapes up amazingly fast. When I had Shane over I was showing him both sharpening systems (as well as both engraving systems) and while I barely got started on another 120 (I need a small faced one) the round shaped in just a few minutes on the PowerHone. Of course, for that one I was willing to start with a large face so it wasn't that one system was faster than the other, just that with the template it's surprisingly easy to make a nice round.

My sister-in-law makes jewelery - mostly beadwork - and has expressed interest in incorporating some engraved bits. On just my second attempt this style only took 20-30 minutes (some of which was spent sketching). I'm going to draw up an alphabet of these with the guidelines already in place. I still won't be as fast as the guys who used to do this all by hand, but I know they'll be pretty darn quick.

This and the flare-cut-scroll are the sorts of things you could do at an art fair, as long as you have someone else to help run the booth and do the transactions.

I need to practice these styles and my lettering, just in case the day job doesn't make it through the recession. Especially the lettering. While some people will pay what it takes to do the high quality work a whole lot more people will pay a modest fee for some nice lettering.

 

[John B.]

Hi KCSteve,
I like what you did and thanks for the encouragement to others.
A little tip you might like to use another time.......
To keep lines parallel just cut one somewhere in the middle of the field and then space off this line on each side with a pair of dividers.
Cut these lines and repeat this until the area is filled.
This also works for doing a square or diamond pattern.
Very much like the system used to checker a wooden stock.

 

[gail.m]

Thanks for posting this Steve, and John B you always come up with a 'keeper'!
Thanks,
gailm

 

[KCSteve]

Last night I spent a little time on the computer and did an alphabet of these ovals - with some guide lines included. I have a PDF of it here (best to right-click and do 'save target as')

On the PDF they're 1.5" x 1". You can copy them out of the PDF as images and size them as needed. I did a 0.75" x 0.5" version for my sister in law.

As usual with shiny silver it's hard to get a really good picture:

The 'A' pops right off the background when you look at it in person.

The slight roughness of the oval is because I didn't have a pre-made one so I just cut one out of some sheet.

I'm going to let her decide where to drill the holes because I don't know how she'll use it - it could be a bracelet center, a pendant, or a charm.

 

[monk]

lookin good kc. in the tips section, i showed a way to quickly transfer all manner of closely spaced parallel lines- straight, curved, & cross hatched. easy and accurate. check it out !

 

[KCSteve]

Thanks Monk!

For these it was simple to just include some on the layout but normally that's not really an option.

 

[clocksdr]

Steve,
Thanks for posting the alphabet, even better in reverse. That makes it easier to transfer. Little things like this are invaluable to beginners like me. I love this forum.
Clocksdr

 

[eastslope]

Steve, you know, I post all of my stuff on here amonst the masterpeices. I feel that my engraving helps everyone appreciate the good stuff that get posted on here. Seth

 

[KCSteve]

That's the same way I feel Seth :thumbs up:

I can currently only aspire to emulate, say, the fine English scroll of Marcus,* but when someone nearer my own level puts up a pretty odds are good that I'll think "Hey, I bet I can do that!"


*And eventually I will do some decent English scroll - it's on my list.

 

[Ron Smith]

Steve,

You can acomplish a little neater shading line along the letter with a liner. That is the traditional way, and it would be much quicker. Take a width liner comparable to the size of the letter and you can do nice shading in one stroke, and it will be ver clean. You can also wriggle that shading line along the letter. It is a little slower, but also clean if you can wriggle straight and stay right on the edge of the letter.

Some useful tips maybe.

Looks good Steve.

Ron S

 

[KCSteve]

Thanks Ron!

Yet another reason I need to get some liners.

I might have to try wriggling the shading - that I can do with the gravers I have.

I'm taking some of your other advice on these. If my sister-in-law thinks they'll add enough value to her jewelery to justify paying me enough to make them, then the faster I can make them the more money I make / hour making them. As you've said, "If you aren't cutting, you aren't making money!" which leads to the obvious corollary of "The faster you make a fixed-price piece the more you made making it."

 

[Ron Smith]

Well even just a flat will give you a nice shading line if you can do it one stroke and smooth, and wriggling with a flat is good too, you just get a little different effect and a darker or lighter shade line according to what tool you use. Each method has it's own appearance.

Rock on!

Ron S

 

[Doc Mark]

Hey Monk!

I don't want to hijack this thread but, thanks for the "parallel line trick"! I don't know how I missed it the first time around but I'm glad you mentioned it again here. It looks like an excellent way to keep your background cuts from going astray. I'll try to tuck this knowledge in one of those mental files cabinets that don't have a sticky drawer and get lost forever!

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Steve223]

That looks Good Steve. My Lettering is awful

 

[KCSteve]

Steve

My lettering is awful too - this was just tracing the outline of a computer-generated letter.

 

[Jim Sackett]

A good ruleing layout.

Steve I'v had some satisfaction using this little trick. After cutting in your outline so you have a guide where you want your background. Re-white the piece and transfer the ruling onto it.

 

[KCSteve]

Another good trick Jim

In this case I didn't need to lay out all of the background lines, just a few guides so I wouldn't wind up gradually leaning over as I went.

It's not hard to do parallel lines if they're close enough together. I don't remember who mentioned it but all you have to do is pick a spot on the edge of your graver and keep it on the previous line. Of course, as I found out, there is a risk of accumulating errors over the course of a number of lines so an occasional reference line is a good thing.