Something to behold...

[Marv Werner]

Check this lady's carving out. She adds new meaning to the word "Awesome".

http://www.catharinekennedy.com/

Marv

[george wilson]

Cast iron isn't the most choice to engrave upon,either!

[Bruce Page]

That is impressive.

[george wilson]

We have a great engraver in Williamsburg,a young woman named Lynn. She was trained by our now retired Master Engraver Herb. He was the best engraver I ever saw. Before him we had the former personal engraver to President Nixon. He used to always fly around with Nixon everywhere he went. They kept a stock of sterling silver hollow ware on the presidential plane,just in case Nixon decided on the spur of the moment to make a presentation to someone.

Lynn did a remarkably quick job of engraving the Queen's saffron pot from the original,which I made the little William and Mary chest for.

[Marv Werner]

Especially for anyone. We find it odd and unusual to see a woman be as accomplished as Catherine is. From a different perspective though, it's kind of sad. It's sad to feel that it's odd. I find it inspiring.

Marv

[george wilson]

If you saw the Beretta documentary on TV,they show women engravers working on their best grade BULLINI (sp?)engraved guns. Bullini is a very detailed style of engraving similar in difficulty to bank note engraving. They are holding a 10X small magnifier in 1 hand,and pushing a graver with the other!!! Cutting steel!!

The U.S. Mint also employs women engravers.

Women have steady hands. Don't underestimate them.

[David Weaver]

Women have steady hands. Don't underestimate them.

Often times, more patience and ability to resist improvising when it's not appropriate, too.

[george wilson]

This saffron pot was engraved by our young woman engraver. I'm not sure if it shows up well enough in the photo,but she did a remarkable job. She had about 4 days to reproduce the intricate engraving on the original saffron pot. The pot is the size of a normal nectarine. Saffron was a very expensive tea made from saffron. Served in very small quantities among the very wealthy in the 18th.C. Note that his pot bears the ER monogram.

I made the chest in English walnut,which is a delightful wood to work with. Not as brittle as American black walnut.

The little black dowel seen in the back corner is a little innovation of mine. The dovetails were fitted so tightly,there was no room for glue,nor did I want the mess of getting it off the wood. This was an extremely rushed project. I put the box together,turned 2 black ebony pins,drilled down through the box vertically,and tapped in the ebony pins with a bit of glue. Those dovetails will never come apart,ever.

This is a William and Mary style chest. I routed the borders around the inside of the chest with a 1/8" deep little groove about 3/32" wide. The satin dark blue lining material was stuffed into the grooves,and a round,silver fabric bunting was carefully glued into it. This gave me a way to gracefully terminate the lining material. I'm not sure if I innovated that.

All the brass work except the high quality hinges are freehand turned from brass. I always had to make the little hooks. This one I fancied up with a little thumb piece to give an elegant touch.

The feet are bun feet. The handle on the lid is a copy of the handle on the pot.

The fire blued steel screws on the brass hinges were standard in the 18th.C.. They never used brass screws since their brass was cast,not rolled like we have today,and would have twisted off when trying to screw them in.

The round wooden fitting in the lid cradles the pot by its handle in satin. When the box is closed,there is no loose shake at all from the pot.

On the second photo,in the upper right hand corner of the box,you can just make out a little brass pin. There is 1 on each side for the front flap to rest against when the box is closed.

I could only wish that there was time to get these parts silver plated,but upper management,as usual,waited until beyond the last minute to make up their minds to order this. I think we got this done the day before the presentation,and barely got it photographed.

[John Coloccia]

Before him we had the former personal engraver to President Nixon. He used to always fly around with Nixon everywhere he went. They kept a stock of sterling silver hollow ware on the presidential plane,just in case Nixon decided on the spur of the moment to make a presentation to someone.


Now that's a story I'd never heard before.

[John Coloccia]

Especially for anyone. We find it odd and unusual to see a woman be as accomplished as Catherine is. From a different perspective though, it's kind of sad. It's sad to feel that it's odd. I find it inspiring.

Marv

Depends which discipline. Many of the finest turners are women. My wife took right to it and can turn beautiful bowls in her sleep. Everything I make comes out looking like a cone. If you want a wooden dunce cap, I'm your man.

[David Keller NC]

What's even more interesting about this is the price she charges - $250-$350 for the scroll, acanthus and cartouche work on both sides of a #2 or a #3. That's a very small amount of money for the quality and complexity of the work that she does - a talented gun engraver will charge in the thousands for a complete engraving job on both sides of the receiver, trigger guard and a 2-3" portion of the butt end of the barrel on a shotgun. That's on the high end, but the photos she shows suggests that she's every bit as capable.

George - You may find this interesting, but the pinned dovetail idea isn't a new one (though perhaps in cabinetmaking) - many of the 18th century timber buildings I've seen have dovetailed and pinned corners throughout the wall (though the pin's aren't visible unless you take off the sill in the attic.) Roy Underhill describes this method in one of his Woodwright's books.

[george wilson]

That's good to know,David. Not sure WHY it's good to know,but it is STILL good to know!!:) Well,blast it! Another FAILED INVENTION. Actually,I recall that I already knew that anyway.:)

I'm not going to build any log houses,or any heavy timber stuff!

My old workmate,Jon,has a house made in Tennessee back in the 70's as I recall. The kit was assembled on his land here. It is all hand hewn square logs,about 12" square. I have wondered how many small animals make their nests in it!! It is still in decent looking shape,though. He puts on preservative rather than paint,of course. It is made of soft pine,though,I think.

I've wondered how they managed to keep finding strong young backs with weak minds to hew those logs!! I guess it's about 30'x40',1 1/2 stories. Young guys with romantic ideas about old ways can be hired to work cheap on such things,I suppose. Actually,I KNOW,because they do it all the time in Williamsburg.

I never really liked the Nixon engraver,he was very skillful,but he did something that left me cold: When engravers make "thicks and thins" in their script engraving,they usually lay the graver over on its side,cutting the "thick" areas like that. This engraver thought that was a cheap way of doing it. He'd engrave several lines close together to swell out the "thicks" in his script. It was very skillfully done,but not 3 dimensional at all. He was the only one I ever met that did that way,though some MACHINE fonts will make thicks and thins that way,only because the machine's stylus cannot cut deep and shallow,though.

[John Coloccia]

What's even more interesting about this is the price she charges - $250-$350 for the scroll, acanthus and cartouche work on both sides of a #2 or a #3. That's a very small amount of money for the quality and complexity of the work that she does - a talented gun engraver will charge in the thousands for a complete engraving job on both sides of the receiver, trigger guard and a 2-3" portion of the butt end of the barrel on a shotgun. That's on the high end, but the photos she shows suggests that she's every bit as capable.


Wow, that is pretty cheap considering.

[Andrae Covington]

...Everything I make comes out looking like a cone. If you want a wooden dunce cap, I'm your man.

Hey sign me up. Need a couple holes for a chin-strap. I will wear it in the shop, appropriate to my woodworking skills.:p

[Gary Herrmann]

Depends which discipline. Many of the finest turners are women. My wife took right to it and can turn beautiful bowls in her sleep. Everything I make comes out looking like a cone. If you want a wooden dunce cap, I'm your man.

Yeah, that's why my wife is the carver in our family. She doesn't turn though. Doesn't do anything with powertools. She loves my planes.

Makes me wonder what would happen if I ever make a treadle lathe.

[Bob Easton]

Hand engraving is an art form that nearly died away in the mid 1900s as gun manufacturers and jewelry shops turned to automated methods. Laser etching has replaced nearly all production engraving. Looks OK, but is clearly inferior when compared to the richness of hand engraving.

A few old gun engravers got together and kept the art alive for a few more decades. It has a steep learning curve, and very few practitioners. This the high prices some of the artisans achieve.

If you're interested in hand engraving, two very active forums have galleries of pictures that will simply amaze:
- Engraving Forum - engravingforum.com
- The Engraver's Cafe -igraver.com

And YES, Catherine is one of the greats!

[george wilson]

Laser etching looks very phony,and I'd never buy a gun engraved by that method. It has no depth to it at all,and is clearly just little burned lines. There are still a lot of people doing hand engraving. Question is,how good are they? Some are quite good,may are so-so. I would be VERY careful who I turned a fine gun over to. I have only 1 factory engraved Colt revolver from the 1940's,whose work I have clearly identified from his style. I'd have to pay for a letter of verification from Colt,though,to sell the gun at a higher price.

Yesterday I bought an engraver's ball from a knife dealer,whose work on the table was quite competent,but not great, not detailed and shaded enough. Then,he took a knife out of his pocket that he engraved for himself. Altogether better! He said he had to charge too much more for doing more thorough work. As a craftsman myself,I knew what he meant,but was happy to see that he could do so much better.

If I wanted a knife from him,I'd have paid the extra. Trouble is,most people probably couldn't see the difference even if they had the money. This guy could expertly cut extremely fine,perfect shading lines when he wanted to. He was a little younger than me,but not by a lot.

This guy was buying a table,traveling to the show,and I didn't see much interest from passers by.

To do high class work,I have always had to get a few customers with the money and vision to tell and demand the best work. Selling to the general public wasn't doing this craftsman much good.

A few other outstanding craftsmen I know have also managed to develop a special clientele. They've had to.

[David Weaver]

That last part is key, george. Finding the customers who want the high quality work and who don't mind paying a fair rate for it.

Wife and I went to the beach a couple of years ago, and one of the guys staying at our B&B was an engraver. His father had been an engraver, and he learned the trade. He said that his best customers are "alternative lifestyle" folks who hear he is willing to do certain types of work on items you wouldn't have lying around your coffee table, but that a lot of the rest of the routine work is drying up because people don't care if it's burned on a machine or done by hand.

He said he had done a shotgun for someone and charged them $3000 for the work, he had no knowledge of the shotgun, but learned later that it was worth something stratospheric, like $30k or something.

He said the next guy to bring a shotgun in wanted his name and some simple stuff on the gun, and he gave the guy an estimate and started to do the work. It was a couple hundred bucks maybe? The guy came back and said someone at the mall at one of the jewelry stands said he'd do the same thing (albeit smaller) on jewelry with a machine for $28, and the guy demanded he match that price on the shotgun. He told the guy he'd give him the gun back and not charge him anything, and the guy took it back partially done. I wonder how that turned out.

I wouldn't think it's a lot different than it's ever been - the guys who get to do the best work are the ones with the best customers.

[george wilson]

"The guys who get to do the best work are the ones with the best customers"

That is a very true statement. Williamsburg was my best customer,and I was able to develop my work since time spent on work wasn't important. The work was done as a demonstration.

Anything anyone bought from the shop actually got a bargain compared to the time lavished on it to make it extra,extra perfect.

I was accused of spraying a violin by one old duff. He had taken my violin to try out,and had found some 80 year old "expert" who decided that the finish had to be sprayed on polyurethane since it was so smooth! This after I had spent months polishing the varnish I COOKED MYSELF to perfection.

I just told him to return the violin at once. Then,I sold it to a professional who had tried it in the shop. He said he had been everywhere looking for its equal,and had to have it.

That is the customer I want: Someone with enough sense to know what the work is. On a banal sounding note,though,if you are going to live and pay your bills,they must also have the money. That's reality.

[David Weaver]

Hopefully, that doesn't make it sound people become good craftsmen only because they're lucky to find money, and that it's luck and not skill.

The money doesn't flow to poor craftsmen, and most can't do the level of work it takes to attract it.

But some, like the guy and the knife, can do good work and not manage to find someone who appreciates it enough to pay for it.

[george wilson]

If you are not trying to do it for a living,customers don't matter. Having a job at Williamsburg,I never HAD to do it for a living. I built up my shop from earnings from my side work. I never like to use household funds to buy my toys.

[Matt Evans]

But some, like the guy and the knife, can do good work and not manage to find someone who appreciates it enough to pay for it.

Yep. That is very true.