Hey from South Dakota

[Rusty345]

I have looked at some of the forum subjects from time to time I have always had an interest inthis type of engraving. I contacted Steve a few years ago to see if the air graver could be used for my type and he sent me to another gentlemen and I was not convinced. I need to justify the expense to my self only. Now more about me and my business: I engrave coinning and striking dies for private mints mostly in the US some Canada and a few Australia. I currently use machines as much as possible. I have a machine called a reducing machine which follows a 3-dimensional pattern that is first made from clay by a sculptor I used to do this also. When first in business I used to handcut the 3-D image in the die itself which needed to be in reverse and of course the same size as the coin. I started to have trouble with my hands and finally had an operation for carpol and to remove a bone chip which had caused the problems and I just haven't got back to hand engraving. I also use a CNC machine that I can cut what we(the minting industry) call 2-D or multilevel dies. I am working on getting aquainted with 3-D computor software to rough out a 3-D image and then go in by hand for the fine details.
I too use an old world type of engraving when handcutting with the hand held engravers and I use a brass ring as leverage for the engraver to scrape away small amounts of metal at a time this is after roughing out an image with a high speed air grinder with small dental burrs. That should do for now. Thanks for the interesting read!

[Roger Henrichs]

Rusty
I live in Fargo, ND and I have Steve's Classic and Artisan AirGravers. I engrave guns and knives and when I get con'd into it some jewelery. If you get up my way and would like to try out a Lindsay AirGraver give me a shout.

Roger Henrichs

[Rusty345]

Thanks for the offer Roger. I may make a trip just for trying your air gravers. When it warms up a bit my wife and I will ride the Harley up. We also have friends up that way just into Minnesota but he works in North Dakota.

Russ Larson