Fun With Cifers

[Mike Dubber]

Most of the rifles I engrave for Custom GunMakers require some kind of animal on the floorplate - typically an animal that matches the caliber of the rifle. This time I got to do something I really enjoyed; I had the opportunity of creating a big Cifer letter "S" for the focus of the bottom metal. Years at the jewelry bench designing and cutting letters created a love and respect for lettering that I still enjoy today.

Big letters like this must be deisgned and executed precisely, if not, the errors are magnified with the size of the letter, and everyone sees it immediately - even if they don't understand letters.

The "Ghost Scroll" behind the S helps ground the letter in the oval...it is also emphasized by the fine silver border.

And to complete embellishment for the bottom of the rilfe:

My "Short Lettering Sermon for Students" goes something like this:
Most folks will casually appreciate and enjoy your scroll work even if it is poorly designed. They will seldom recognize errors...the don't understand scrolls and what makes them good or bad.
Likewise, if you do lettering poorly, everyone will immediately recognize your errors - we've all been trained since first grade to see and recognize properly designed letters.
The good news for engravers is that unlike scrolls, letters are not mysterious. They occur in fonts and they are readily availble for you to copy. So long as you engrave them as they are designed, and so long as you don't try change the font sets to make them "fancy," you can do letters!

 

[Robert Jobe]

That is great.

 

[Gil]

Lovely work Mike.

 

[mrthe]

Mike very beautyfull work i like very much the background of the leter too!

 

[Montejano]

A beautiful engraving. My congratulations:clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:

Antonio

 

[SamW]

And excellent scroll to go with it!!

 

[Glenn]

Thanks Mike,
You have always been so generous with sharing your work and constantly giving excellent advice. Your work is always superb.

 

[Douglas]

Very nicely done, it all flows well together.

 

[mitch]

an excellent sermon, Preacher Mike! i recently took on a new client who is an excellent craftsman in his own right, and is in need of various lettering on the fine items he makes. since his needs are only occasional and relatively minimal in this regard, he initially inquired as to whether i might teach him to do his own little bits of engraving. i told him i could, but lettering is one of the harder skills to learn to do well (particularly commensurate with the quality of his own work), and he probably wouldn't be doing it often enough to stay in practice. then he saw what i could do for a reasonable fee in more than reasonable delivery times and he's since decided his time is better spent doing what he already does best.

 

[Tira]

Beautiful Mike! The gold S is fantastic, but I really like the lacy fine scroll behind the S that fills the space and makes it pop. Very cool.

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Thanks for showing Mike, Like Tira said, the way you filled the background on the letter S. Of course I like all of it too.

arnaud

 

[monk]

a rather lovely marriage of letter & scroll. quite lovely to my eye.