Biggest engraving error I ever made

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Today a customer came in with a boat bell asking if I could engrave it. So he must have heard that for that job he needed a hand engraver. My billboard, having “hand engraver” on it finally is doing what it is for.
As the bell is too big holding it in a balvise, I used my old leather sand bag.
Just had to keep the bell in one hand while cutting with the other one.
I was amazed how good a hand works for holing a work piece.

I’m dyslectic, so before starting making one cut, I check and double check every letter.

So only after the bell was finished, I saw the error, I engraved “Gildenhyus” instead of “Gildenhuys”

Once I could breathe again, I inlayed some brass en corrected it.

I hope this never will happen again but.... if you can't fix it, don't start doing it! arnaud

 

[silverchip]

Nice fix Arnaud, wya to og!!!!!!!

 

[oiseau metal arts]

very nicely uncut/recut.

 

[DakotaDocMartin]

One good thing is the similarity of the "y" and the"u". All you needed to fill was the tail on the "y" and then make the "u" a "y".

At least that's how I'd guess you did it. It could have been much worse with dissimilar letters.

 

[scott99]

I always seem to find it is not the biggest mistake I made.But instead, the biggest one up until now.

scott99

 

[Sam]

This is a good lesson for every hand engraver. It's going to happen sooner or later and you are left with two choices. Fix it or buy a replacement. A repair like this is what separates the professionals from the amateurs.

 

[Marrinan]

Well Done. Excellent save. The worst mistake I ever make is not charging enough. Fred

 

[GTJC460]

Nice recovery

 

[MexicanEngraver]

my father before engrave letters called all his children so they could see it was written correctly, arnaud greetings and have a nice start to the year

 

[MexicanEngraver]

when you do a job, do not drink beer! lol, just kidding I'm glad you fixed it on time and in shape

 

[Beathard]

Congrats Arnaud, Sam just called you a professional. Really nice recovery.

 

[mtgraver]

Excellent repair Arnaud, very nice job all around!
Dave, that was a good one!
Mark

 

[Ed Westerly]

Well done, Arnaud. And as you can tell by all of the responses, we've all been there or dread going there ourselves!

 

[mdengraver]

A good lesson for all of us Arnaud in how to recovery from a mistake!

 

[monk]

nice looking correction. quite some time ago tira posted a foto or 2 of a large bell she had to engrave. check it out in case you get another one. she had a nifty arrangement for holding and positioning the one she did.

 

[dimovengraving]

Ha ha .. I needed of 5 minutes

to see
"what exactly is a difference between "Gildenhyus" and "Gildenhuys" !? "

I have to be careful

Thank You Arnaud

 

[Willem Parel]

Very good Job Arnaud in every way, what fond is it that you using here.
And the guy's name is it Rick or is it Rich? I am asking because Rich is a bit unusual name and I read Rich on the bell.
Sorry for shocking you again.....:beatup:

Did you use bended gravers for the curved surface?

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Thanks all for your compassion and kind words.

Tahks verry muhc Dave :biggrin:


Doc, yes it could have been that simple as you describe, but it was not. First I tried my PUK to weld some brass into the cuts, but that made it even worse. The PUK isn’t made for welding those big objects. The result of trying this made it even worse as I burned only holes. So I had to cut an outline around all the mess, and making the undercuts. I annealed a brass wire to fill that area, but it didn’t work. Equal hardness of metals was probably the problem. Then I thought inlaying an exact sheet of brass would work. I used Sam’ transfer wax and Scotch tape to transfer the shape, pierced it out of a sheet of brass, used a ball punch to make the outline a bit smaller by making it convex. Filed the edges so they would fit the outline undercut and hammered it down the way the border of the sheet went into the undercut.
I made a design to illustrate. After that is was just a matter of stoning and polishing before cutting it again the right way.

Thanks Sam, mostly we all only show the best jobs we finished, not the errors. I wanted to show that also professionals make mistakes

MexicanEngraver, yes not a bad idea showing the lettering before cutting to someone who can spell better.

Yes Bruce, I think looking a the reply’s we all dread making this mistakes and it also illustrates we all like Bloopers.

Monk I will look for that post of Tira, but holding the bell wasn’t the problem.

Evgeni, only 5 minutes? It took me almost one hour. :biggrin:

Willem, Rich comes from Richard, it is a common name over here. I just used a regular graver, but the way I grind them they always have a bit more lift.
The font, I don’t remember anymore, I have a collection of 800 fonts installed on my computer that I have collected during the years. I always make a backup of them and re install them when having a new computer.
This is a list of common lettertypes I posted some years ago.



arnaud

 

[rayf24]

Nice save arnaud and a lesson for us all
I don't know about the beer drinking remark could have been what was in that roll up cig's you smoke
Ray

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Ray, indeed could have been the beer if not that I stopped drinking alcohol for over 5 weeks now and it is my intention to keep it that way.

arnaud