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Fine Embellishment Everything from hand engraving and scrimshaw to filework and carving. The fine art end of the knifemaker's craft. |
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#1
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Need help: Tapered inlay
hello folks,
I have been making progress with line borders and block/Roman letters, but am having a bit of trouble with script letters, because of the taper. My last effort involved inlaying .010 wire for the basic shape, then grafting in another piece of .010 to get the thick parts of the stems. It worked OK, but the ends still look too thick, and sometimes the middle wall bewteen the two lines shows through on the top. Should I try .006,.010,.020,.010,.006, in a row, to get a nice taper? Any other ideas? Thanks! Tom |
#2
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Tom, I'm not quite sure what you are trying to achieve with all the different size wires but I can describe what I would do inlaying into steel on a gun.
I'd take a piece of wire only slightly thicker than my broadest stroke (and a little bit shorter) and would hammer this in using a soft brass punch in my GraverMach handpiece set at around 1800-2000 spm. If you let the punch do the work, ie not pressing down on it trying to force the gold in, the gold should spread and fill the prepared bed right down into the narrowest of points. Then I'd burnish to make sure the gold was in to every crevass and strike off (burnishing as I go). If for any reason the gold didn't fill the narrowest stem I'd lift the end of the gold sligthly and add some thinner wire using the same process. I'd use as few bits of wire as possible as the more you use the more likely they are to come out (I've seen it on many an old gun!) leaving the lettering looking terrible later on in life. If you're seeing metal between your 2 wires the wire ain't thick enough. The gold should hammer weld itself together when inlaying. You should see NO join and if you do one of the pieces of gold isn't held in properly and WILL pop out at sometime. As a matter of interest burnishing achieves another goal too in that you'll be able to see any movement in the gold and if it moves anywhere at all ( ie you can see it moving up and down as you test using the burnisher point) it will at some stage in its life come out of the cut. hope this helps Marcus Last edited by Marcus Hunt; 10-05-2006 at 03:01 AM. |
#3
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Another thought Tom,
It's also very important when using multiple wires to achieve a certain width that you keep the edges somewhat squared off. You need to punch the wires down together to avoid one wire riding over the top of another. It will appear to look filled in and when you sand flush the top layer will peel away leaving a mess. |
#4
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Tom,
I too am not quite sure what your trying to do with various thicknesses, but I get a taper two ways. the first if its an orginating line like on a border, I would do it by rolling the wire between two flat peices of steel, same as if I was doing it to get taper to push through the sizing die. And in this case, I would make/shape the cavity to fit the taper of the gold, not the other way around. But for what I think your doing, perhaps wrongly, you need to do the tradtional inlay thing of making the gold fit the pre-made cavity, and the best thing for me would be to use all the little odd bits I have from cutting out my flat sheet inlays, which I cut out of .016 thickmetal. There are always some odd little peices that can be snipped right off and fit more or less where I would want them go say into a Script or Old English letter. I use a pair of fingernail clippers to do some final minute trimming if necessary after its of the main "sprue" if you will, because obviously these peices are too tiny hold any other way. Last edited by pilkguns; 10-05-2006 at 06:38 AM. |
#5
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Thanks guys,
My clumsy explanation was just the thought that maybe I needed to use a very narrow piece at the tip, then join thicker pieces end to end, to get the thicker areas properly filled in. I see such "piecework" isn't necessary. Thanks for the very good advice from you all. I'm guessing one should price inlaid script lettering at a higher rate than block! take care, Tom |
#6
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tom .. i must agree with marcus . when i inlay a tapered lind i under cut the entire lind and i use 1 size wire and i pound that size all the way down that tapered line then i shave off the excess gold and then burnish it to fill any voids .. ron p.
__________________ ron p. nott |
#7
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gold inlay on blued parts
Hello,
one more question about tapered inlay. What would you do if someone asked you to do a script style inlay on an already blued part, but without damaging the blued surface? Have you ever tried that? I think about a sort of raised inlay, trimming the letters very carefully and retouching possible scrachtes on the blued part with one of those cold blueing solutions. Is that feasible? And in case it were, would it be wise to do such a tiny (vowels not higher than 2 milimeters) raised inlay? I gess it would be bound to quick wearing out (hopping the inlayed letters do not come out). Please, some advise, or a categorical DO NOT DO IT befere i go into that swamp. Thank you very much to All. Fernando. |
#8
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hi ferando .. yes that can be done , after inlaying your gold i would use a brass chisel made from an 1/8 inch. weld rod and then carefully trim off the excess gold .. ron p.
__________________ ron p. nott |
#9
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My 2 cents - Why not use a wire thick enough for the thickest part then just file down to the thinner parts as needed? If too cumbersom then how about soldering them as you go, roughly to shape, then as you seat them they will fill in nicely, and when sanded flush, will be invisible, as they will be fused together. This would work especially well when bring in branches. Just a thought. Excellent work just takes longer because of the details required.
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