New member from The Netherlands

[Predator]

Hello everyone,

As a new member on the forum I like to introduce myself. My name is Arno and live in the Netherlands. I'm very much interested in engraving and want to give it a try. I'm completely new in metal engraving but not new on metal working in general. I'm a toolmaker and made several tools for my other hobbies.
My other hobbies are woodworking in several different aspects such as woodturning, including ornamental turning as can be seen on the SOT website (Society for Ornamental Turners in the UK) and O.T.I. website (Ornamental Turning International in the USA), chipcarving, pyrography and metal turning and milling for toolmaking. My latest addition to my hobbies was leatherworking. And this triggered my interest in engraving because I was looking for a way to make nice bucles for my belts. And looking for techniques and tools to do so I stumbled on the website of Steve Lindsay. Willing to give it a try I ordered his universal template, hand push engraving tool and a few HSS steel blanks. Grinding the tool blank was no problem because I have much experiance with making tools for my ornamental turning, but making my first cuts in brass was a different story. Trying to control the graver and preventing the graver to slip out of the cut seems to be a big effort. But I'll keep trying and maybe I have to start switching to a more softer metal like copper for my first try.
Hopefully this intro of myself is not to much boring, but gives you an idea of myself. My profile picture is a piece of ornamental turning in "African Blackwood". Some pictures are attached, 1- some boxes with ornamental turning, 2- a pendant for my wife, 3- Making the dedree scale of my "goniostat", 4- the "goniostat" that I made for grinding my toolbits for ornamental turning, actually the same as a ficture for grinding gravers

[GeneC]

looks like you will fit right in. welcome

[Predator]

Hi Genec,

Thanks for your welcome reply, feels good when someone gives a motivation note. By the way I was stunned by the beauty of all the work I see. Just up my alley. But for me there is the basic knowledge for starting of in engraving and with the experience I have with ornamental turning, working in wood with .01 milimetre of tolerances otherwise it will not look professional enough for me. I like to work as perfect as I can get it and engraving is just that challenge to bite into. Did not try again last days, was busy with some other projects and need to save some funds for the pneumatic engrager. Looks like the artisan is the way to go because no funding for me for the complete palmcontrol. Thanks again for welcoming me. Thumbs up for you all on the forum and keep on the good work , hope to engrave my super blackhawk one day