New member - engraving questions

[kiltedcelt]

Hello,

My name is Matt - I'm located in Chicago, IL USA. I just found this board and decided to join hoping the expertise of the members here could help me out with a project. I'm not really an engraver - actually more of a hobby woodworker. I make archery stuff - bows, arrows, quivers, and medieval crossbows. I have a project I'm working on now where I'll be building two medieval crossbow replicas. They will closely resemble these two bows:

Both of these bows have inlays/overlays which were likely composed of ivory, or maybe bone. There are few visible joints so I'm more likely to believe the were using ivory since much longer pieces could be used than if it was done with bone. Here is a detail shot of the upper of the two bows, showing the engraving done on the ivory.

Now, for my first question. Since I obviously can't use ivory and even if I could use mammoth ivory or something similar the cost would be prohibitive to me, what sort of material could I use to achieve the look of ivory? The material must be able to be heat formed or able to be planed to a thin enough thickness to allow for the compound bends that can be seen on some of the pieces. Fewer seams and longer wider pieces I think is more important to preserve the look of the original rather than using a period-appropriate material like bone or ivory.

Of course the material must be able to take fine detail engraving and must hold some kind of finish to darken in the engraved areas. Also, the material would preferably be something that could be worked with hand tools. I have a Dremel tool with a flex shaft attachment but something tells me this type of engraving would be best done with hand tools, especially since it will probably have to be done with the pieces in place on the actual crossbow tiller. I would plan on experimenting/practicing on scraps for a while before I tackled the pieces themselves.

In searching for ivory substitute materials I've seen micarta but was told it is too brittle to handle the compound curves these bows would require. I also turned up a material called Elforyn, but from what I've seen it doesn't quite come in large enough pieces. The longest pieces I would be using might need to be nearly 2 feet long if only a couple inches wide.

Finally, I really know nothing about engraving although I have done a bit of minor wood carving using carver's gouges, knives, etc. so I'm not entirely without a clue. What sort of tools would I need for this type of carving and any resources on basic techniques, how-to books, etc. Unfortunately, most other crossbow makers I know of, if they do any kind of work this decorative, they send the bow out to someone else who does the engraving/carving. So, not much help in those quarters as to how to accomplish this. Anyway, sorry if this is a lot of newbie question stuff and forgive me if I overlooked some area of the site with beginner information. So, any suggestions to point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

[John B.]

Hi Matt,
Those look like beautiful crossbows.
Most of the work on the white parts looks to be scrinshaw or possibly wood burning.
Scrimshaw can be done with simple tools such as an Xacto knife a needle sharp points mounted in a pin vise or wood handle.
There are a ton of how-to books on scrimshaw on the market.
How to Scrimshaw and Carve Ivory ISBN 0940362-01-5 and Artistry in Scrimshaw by Lita R. Smith-Gharet are a couple of reasonablely priced ones. Take a look on the Internet.
The pic of the last bow you posted has decorated white material on the actual bow.
Because of the bending required are you sure this is not some type of white flexible wood laminated to the bow and with wood burned decoration?
Just a thought, hard to tell from the pictures.
We have some great Scrim artists here. Maybe one of them can be more help.
Best.

 

[Doc Mark]

Matt,

This will be a heck of a project! Of the Ivory inlaid weapons that I have seen in various museums, most had relatively small plaques of ivory butted together. Where there were long runs of smooth surface or curved surfaces, large pieces of ivory were sawn and shaped/B] to match the underlying wood profile. There is no way to bend a "veneer" of ivory over concave or convex surfaces. (Although, there were persistent statements to the contrary in ancient writings. The famed statue of Athena in the Parthenon was said to be covered with ivory bent to form around the statues matrix. Some even said that ivory could be put on a lathe and "peeled" like bark to make thin sheets. There was always a "secret formula" that one needed to soak the ivory in, but no one knows what that formula was. Apocryphal at best!) These were then either decorated with relief carvings or engraved and then the engraved line was pigmented. Anyway, you could carve Paper Micarta into the proper profiles and then carve or engrave your designs. This would depend on how thick a piece of Mycarta is available.

Best of luck,

Mark

 

[kiltedcelt]

Doc,

So you're saying that in those curved areas around the roller nut (the most extreme curves), that a thick piece of bone or micarta, whatever, could be glued in place and then filed to the correct curvature? A couple guys on a crossbow building forum told me that if you got bone thin enough it could be steamed and bent almost like a piece of wood. If that's not the case I could see where thicker blocks shaped in place would work for this application. I think it might even work better than trying to use a thinner material and forcing it to conform to the compound curves. I've got probably a couple dozen photos of museum pieces and only a small handful seem to show that the overlays were composed of smaller individual pieces. Of course it could also be the limitations of viewing jpgs. that is preventing me from seeing the telltale seams in many of these photos.

 

[mtgraver]

Matt,
I agree with the other very talented Mark, the ones I've seen and handled have been ivory or bone. Made up of close fitting pieces, not sure of how they were held on to the stock, probably a hide glue, be it a bow or a firearm the same technique was used. The region in which they were made had variances such as the Middle East vs. Europe.
If you want a low cost material that can be formed, I would recommend cow horn. It can be shaped, split, dyed, carved engraved, I wouldn't heat over 325 degrees in oil not water or use a hot air gun. Cow horn comes in many colors, densities from white to a green or amber, either opaque or transparent (lant horn aka lantern). Another material to try is moose antler by sawing the palm section into slabs but it can't be formed, but will work similarly to ivory. Good luck we all will be interested in seeing the finished piece.
Mark

 

[mtgraver]

Matt,
The technique of the embellishment appears to me to be more of an engravers style than the typical scratched with a stylist, or possibly a small knife can be used but the bolder cuts seem to be more in line with an engravers training, which these weapons would have been of the high end of the scale.
Mark

 

[DKanger]

I agree with Mark about using white cow horn. However, micarta is resin-based. If you could cut very thin veneer slices, they can be joined with super glue and if carefully heated it can be formed. The downside is it will char if you get it too hot.

I have a slab of linen-laid, ivory micarta that I bought back in the 80's, but I don't know if it's still available. It had the grain of ivory and also naturally aged to a mellow, light ochre color. Still, horn is much cheaper and more workable.

Dave

 

[monk]

i would simply try using a thicker piece of the laminated micarta. and carve it to the needed contour. the stuff holds all the detail you would need. would resemble ivory somewhat, due to the weave and laminations. it will also discolor with a very, very light application of natural earth colors ( light yellow ochre), for example can give this stuff a quite aged look. rotary tools are out, except perhaps the high speed units with very fine burs for roughout work. traditional gravers or those tools used for scrimshanding will work ok. best of luck.

 

[tbear]

Here are a few places with the Micarta etc.

http://www.elforyn.de/wbc.php?sid=8445072bde&rid=0&cmd=lang&lc=35&tpl=start.html

http://www.jantzsupply.com/cartease...rimary&string=Micarta&string2=Handle Material

 

[kiltedcelt]

Well, after more research, pricing of available materials, both man-made and natural, and advice regarding how the curved areas may have been made, I've decided to go ahead with my original plan and use bone for the inlays/overlays on these two bows. Bone will be the cheapest material I can use and also has the advantage in this case of being historically accurate. There just isn't a realistic enough man-made substitute that could be heat formed that would make this easier. Alas, the man-made alternatives all appear to be much more expensive than using actual bone. I suspect that as is the case with most photos on the internet, resolution is too low to show that many of these bows probably have visible seams where individual smaller pieces of bone were pieced together to cover the stocks. Additionally, a poster on another forum I read did mention that in some historical examples he's seen, it does appear as if much thicker pieces of bone were used initially in those areas that are curved and were subsequently filed down to shape.