DIY Engraving

[livewire]

Originally Posted by Constant

Here's the front:

jaw dropping, just great!

[sebwiers]

Originally Posted by DrAwKwArD

That tank is retarded. How cold you be that good at something like engraving? Totally jealous!

Looks to me like it was modeled (in clay) on top of a normal tank, then a mold was pulled, cast in wax, and the wax cast (lost wax) in aluminum or pewter. There's no possible way to produce that much relief with engraving, and using repuse (basically miniature body working tools) would be enormously challenging and risky (the metal could "tear" before you got the desired relief).

If I'm right, it's basically a gigantic cowboy belt buckle - exact same crafting techniques. It also means the guy has - or had - a mold and could make duplicates (as with almost any cast metal sculpture).
(When they say "they broke the mold", that's exactly what they mean; the mold pulled from the original sculpt and used to cast wax blanks was destroyed. The original sculpt is usually damaged in making the molds, so once that mold is gone, you can never make an exact duplicate again.)

Still some damn fine artistry (I plain suck at figurative work) but it is a MUCH less difficult working method. In theory I could make something like that (have used the techniques for other projects) but I doubt the results would be as pretty, so knowing how it was done doesn't decrease my admiration any.

[sebwiers]

Here's some more work that looks similar, but I'd bet this actually IS repuse. Note that the relief is much lower, and there are no hard edges (as seen on the edges of the scrolls in the first case; you can do valleys and creases just fine in repuse).

[Poopie]

^^^
That is all hand engraved chase and chisel/pneumatic chase and not Repoussé....



One of my favorites bikes though...