Engraving, the Beginning...

I have wanted to be able to engrave for quite a while now, but have been busy learning all sorts of other stuff. There is something specific I would like to be able to do with it to incorporate into my work. Toward the end of last year I finally decided it was time to take the plunge and I started getting some of the necessary equipment and any books I could find, as well as watching any YouTube videos I could find. Long story short, it’s very difficult and was immediately clear I need to find some instruction.

On my way down to my jewelry retreat in March, I spent two days with the wonderful J.J. Roberts. We worked on sharpening gravers, worked with an air-assisted handpiece, and he introduced me to hand-push engraving and hammer and chisel engraving. It was wonderful to see all of this stuff in person rather than just reading about it or seeing it in a video. Again, it was abundantly clear that this was going to be a long learning process. That’s fine, I’m willing to take my time - my ideas will wait.

While at Retreat, I was pretty busy making pieces for my upcoming shows. Unfortunately none of those shows are now happening due to Covid-19, but at least I’m ready for when they do start back up. Once I got home I decided it was time to have some dedicated engraving practice time each day. I don’t have an air-assist handpiece, and, if I end up getting one at all, I won’t be spending money on one for a long time. My real interest was in push-engraving. However, I was playing around with the hammer and chisel engraving and absolutely love it! I think part of the reason is that it has a similar feel to chasing, which I’m pretty comfortable at already.

I’ve now bought Sam Alfano’s hammer and chisel video series and am working through that. Below are the first couple of practice plates I’ve done. I wanted to post them here so that I can refer back to them as I progress (hopefully I’ll show progress!). It’s amazing how many tiny nuances there are to consider when trying to engrave! There is a reason that people work for many years as an apprentice to learn this skill.

Everything being shut down due to Covid-19 often feels overwhelming and scary, but I have found that keeping myself focused on using this time to learn new things is really helping get me through it. The engraving, as well as the training program at JTS, have really helped me stay focused.