by valerieaheck on May 11, 2012
Several friends have asked to see my Ornamental Hand Engraving Samples from the class I took last week at
New Approach. We worked on 2 by 2 inch squares of copper sheet metal. The patterns above and below are meant to go on a ring, but it’s best to first practice this technique on flat instead of a curved surface.
Notice the pattern to the right has little berries on it, I liked that one a lot!
On the piece above I drew some circles to represent the sides of a ring and did a wheat leaf pattern up the left side and a 1/2 wheat leaf up the right. These still need a great deal of practice.
I did enjoy making flowers. The one in the center (the biggest one) is my favorite! I slipped with the graver and turned that slip into the stem of the flower.
We started practicing scroll patterns.
This flower design was an image transfer that we then traced with a scribe on the metal and then engraved.
The plate above is flowers our teacher engraved. He drew names and let us each pick our favorite plate. Luckily my name was drawn last so I got everything that was left. (2 plates and an inlay sample!) : )
My sample of this pattern is the first picture. Compare the two and see how much cleaner the teacher’s lines are.
On the last day of class we were shown how to inlay one metal into another. This is copper into brass, and then our teacher engraved the copper. I thought it was really cool!
Engraving frankly is hard to explain without really showing what we did and showing the tools. It is difficult to master but truly a lot of fun.
Have a happy day!
by valerieaheck on May 11, 2012
I promised to share some of my engravings from class, I left my notes at school today (the
New Approach School for Jewelers) but luckily I have my notes that were taken for me when I missed this ornamental hand engraving class several years ago. The best way for me to photograph the engravings is to take a smoke pull. We are engraving on flat sheet metal, you take the metal and hold it over a candle and get the engraved section covered in soot. Then you take tape, and tape over the engraving and stick it to white paper. The white is where metal was engraved and removed. In a way this is like the negative of a picture. All of these engravings were done by the teacher
Jason Marchiafava as examples for our class to learn from.
Here is our crazy fancy and romantic candle setup in the studio for doing the smoke pulls. Don’t you love the use of the engraving ball? Most expensive candle holder ever!
I just love this flower and how the swirls come out of it.
Feel free to ask questions, I’m not going to tell you much on how to do this and it wouldn’t help you learn it anyway. You really need to take this class and be there in person. Jason is a wonderful instructor and I can’t recommend The New Approach School enough.