Announcement: Cutting & shading exercise #3 by Lee Griffiths

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Stewart, hard to see the cuts, even when I open your image. And if you think about it, you only use 50% of the image size with the subject itself.
I recently started a tread "How to show our work using a camera"

arnaud

 

[Lee]

Whitney, the general outline of the scrolls is nice. As Arnaud pointed out, we can't see well enough to comment on the shading. It looks like you are headed in a good direction.

 

[Lee]

The design for this exercise was taken from this plate. It began as a demonstration at one of the shows I did a number of years ago. Notice that the corners were going to be different especially the top and bottom corners. This was more for demonstration and experimentation than because it is a great idea to keep the viewer confused and guessing. Sam and I simply chose a corner design from the plate that we felt was going to give you a good exercise. It can be done many ways and I chose on this plate to engrave it with no background removal but with some bright cutting. Hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Lee I'm working on mine, I will post it soon
Arnaud

 

[Red Green]

I began my theft of your copyrighted design a few days ago. I'm attempting to make the theft as complete as possible, I even filled off the serial numbers , and still have the basic design obvious, hopefully. I haven't much to show at the moment because I'm slow and spend too much time as an instigator on the Internet. I will attempt to post the results if I am able to maintain a low enough profile until then. :biggrin:

 

[Stewart's Jewelers]

thanks i did read about taking better picture ill have to keep that in mind for then next one i do. also kinda hard to get a good picture with you cell phone.
cant wait to do the next exrcise!.

 

[Red Green]

OK sorry Andrew.
Bob

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Bob

Surely the aim of the exercise is to cut it ??

I don't see the point of recreating a computer drawing and killing yourself with two stones at one time

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Here is my attempt on Lee’s design. Yes once again cutting Chrome on a business card holder.
Now it isn’t that much a problem cutting it, but the reflection ward hard and made me not see the cuts that well. So I was more than half way when I solved it using the “Sam Alfano Transfer Wax”. I will post that in another tread “another simple thing”
When one knows about how to solve, indeed it is stupid why you never thought about that before.

So sure I can do better next time when I use the “Sam Alfano Transfer Wax” from the start.

arnaud

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Am I still in with this one Sam?

arnaud

 

[rod]

Very handsome, Arnaud,

Looking back at Lee's plate, he has just a few leaned-over beauty cuts on the underside of tendrils and they do add a very nice touch... a little sparkle, that you could add to yours in a few moments? Gives that sense of depth that we have been speaking about.

best wishes!

Rod

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Thanks Rod, yes I know I can do and add other things, but I think it is ok the way it is, I always finish what I started to make it come out the best I can, but as I said, the reflection of the chrome was a problem. No excuse of course, and if I would not have liked the result, I would not have post it.
And by practising on this one, most important for me was NOT TO OVER KILL with to much parallel lines, I need to step back a bit to shade more spontaneous.
My shading and cutting became to look like machine engraved ones, so I got to practice to do it more spontaneous, good balance on black and white, but not that machine looking thing.
Of course it is because I'm a goldsmith looking at 1/100 of a mm, but as I said, I got to get rid of that on my engravings.

arnaud

 

[Willem Parel]

My shading and cutting became to look like machine engraved ones, so I got to practice to do it more spontaneous, good balance on black and white, but not that machine looking thing.
Of course it is because I'm a goldsmith looking at 1/100 of a mm, but as I said, I got to get rid of that on my engravings.
arnaud

Would it help Arnaud to go back using the magnifier instead of the microscope with the shading

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Yes I'm thinking about that, but to be honest, my eyes aren't what they use to be, so sure I enjoy and use all sort of magnification, even eye glasses. So when using my microscope, I use it at the less magnification.

arnaud

 

[thughes]

My attempt

Well, it's official. I suck at photography worse than I do engraving, sorry. Don't look too close. I'm trying to make some bevel cuts, but mostly i screw it up pretty badly. Then I dropped it and put that big scratch across it.

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

I don't see any scratch.

arband

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Don't be to hard on yourself. It looks fine and you have to remember where you came from.............which is the same as the rest of us. We all start knowing nothing and now look at you!!

Sure there can be some improvements but that just comes with time and practice.

Bevel cuts/Flare cuts/Flange cuts............they are made by rolling the graver as you cut. Start with the point stays upright and toward the end of the cut you gently tip the graver over so that one edge is cutting wider than the other. Try some squiggly freehand lines on a piece of scrap. Just roll the graver from side to side and see what happens. Take it slowly and keep doing it till you get the hang of it.

If you are using a 90 degree square then the effect is a lot less noticeable but still there. If you use a 120 degree then the effect will be a lot more dramatic and very noticeable. In fact with a 120 graver you can really overdo it..................Try a couple of lines with each and you will soon see what I'm getting at. Then it is just a matter of controlling the graver and how much you roll it.

Give it a go and see what happens

Cheers
Andrew

 

[thughes]

Thanks Andrew. I've been using that Lindsay 116 degree template with the parallel heel, which by the way will still leave drag marks if you try hard enough. But it sure is easy to resharpen when you use the template. But I've been practicing on the bevel/flare/beauty cuts on plates. Sometimes I het it right and it looks great, and sometimes I roll it too far and have a big WIDE cut that doesn't look so hot. I know what I'm supposed to do, I'm just not consistent. I'm gonna take a guess and say more practice.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Yip, the 116 with a parallel heel will do it alright.

Time and practice is all it is. When I first started doing it I would have a flare cut from hell but it eventually got better.

One thing that may help is to keep your graver faces real small. It is a lot easier to see what is going on and may help you have more control. With larger faces it is easy to lose track of what you are doing..............always keep your graver face in proportion to the work.

Cheers
Andrew