Pauls Plate Submission

[paul66]

(If you would like to comment on this submission, you may do so by posting a reply in this thread. Thanks! Kaitlin)



First practice Design Plates

Well I have had about one hour practice with the airgraver practicing my foot and graver coordination, on lines and circles, in between work (sorry Kathy, ring should be ready next week ) And while this is expierience, I wanted to practice on an actual design on a plate just for fun.

I found the art work for a piece I engraved in trade school, and wanted to re engrave it with what I have learnt, and my new tools, so I can compare the difference

You may recognize this from my other thread (in gallery show and tell ), this was traced on the plate with copy paper and cut with a flat hand graver after about 4 days of practice.

Apprentice engraving


For the new plate I will transfer the image with the laser copier and acetone method.I have read on the threads how a lot of people have trouble with transfer methods, this may not work for real fine detail, as the image can bleed a little, but if you have a fine line, bold printed image, and are quick, it works very well, also its cheep, and costs almost nothing.
My image is not that great the lines are a bit thick, but i will show you how it works.

First make sure you have a reversed image you want to transfer, and make a few copys of it on a plain old laser printer with ordinary paper.



Clean your metal with a wipe of acetone on a tissue and let it dry. Next hold the image (ink down ) on the metal



And the tricky bit, wipe a acetone soaked tissue across the paper, you should see the image clearly, wait a maybe a second then dry the paper by blowing on it, it will dry immediately . Now see how the transfer looks. sometimes a little experimentation is needed, less or more acetone , shorter or longer soak time, but once worked out, works for me most times, and if it didnt, well you have those extra copys dont you, to try again.



Now lets try and cut it, notice the classic in the picture for extra credit



And the final result.



But wait, one final touch, To mark this occasion of my first classic engraved plate It needs to be signed, its a special edition, a Classic No 1



Final Final result



I am extremely happy with this result, I know I have LOTS to learn but I can now see me getting there
This took about 1 hour total from printing to engraving Things I need to learn, better control of wide cutting, also this piece taught me I have even worse control cutting and turning the vice anti clockwise so now I will practice this, and the lettering mmmm , But overall WOW I am very happy.

[paul66]

Hi all, been a little busy to do much practicing but managed to copy a design from a dover book "Handbook of Ornament" , transfered image by photocopy and acetone method, and cut it during the day. Not the best way to practice with all the starting and stopping, I would just get in the groove then have to stop again. I thought this design would be good for practicing coordinating vice and graver control, also practicing back-cutting.

Plate 2


I have several of the dover printed books that I think are excellent for engraving examples for practice and they are cheep to buy.
Handbook of ornament
Scroll ornaments of the early victorian period
and Florid victorian ornament

yours Paul

[paul66]

Hi all,
copied and transfered a image from "handbook of ornament" . Wanted to try adding a bit of character and life into the cuts on this practice plate, dont know if i succeeded but had fun. Will have to pay attention to the rules on how to achieve this. Its one of the things I find very frustrating, I can recognize a piece if its right, but dont know how to achieve it myself.

You may (hard not to notice ) see the big scratch on the plate, was 90% done when while turning I released the positioning vice during a cut and AAAAAAAHHHHHHH SH%$#, was going so well too. thought it only fair to show it warts and all, you cannot know how hard it was NOT to photoshop it out on the picture (pity you can not do that in real life )

Plate 3



yours Paul

[paul66]

Hello all
I felt it was time for an update, Things were going great with the engraving gaining confidence and ( some ) control, then three weeks ago I made THE BIG MISTAKE, yes you guessed the annual family holiday. On the first day about 30 minutes in, My right knee and body decided to go a different way down the ski slope. Didn't do any permanent damage ( dislocated knee and fracture ) but are still having some issues.

I find it a bit funny that a palm control would be quite useful at the moment, still I am itching to get back into it, and hopefully I will have better foot control before the contest finishes as i was having a lot of fun developing my graver skills, and doing it before my peers made it a nice challenge, and certainly encouraged me to improve.

Dont count me out just yet but Just in case, thanks for all the feed back from the forum

Yours Paul