Howdy Folks,

I got to go home from El Paso for the New Years. I sure hope everyone had a good holiday season. While I was home I spent a little time in the shop. This buckle is the result. I see some improvement but still need a little fine tuning.

On the way home I stopped and visited with Stewart. A kind feller for sure and always welcoming. We did not get to spend much time but sure looked at a few things.

When I came back on New Years Day I again stopped and visited Stewart. Sure wished I had had more time on the way home, this buckle might have been a lot better.

Anyway, thanks to Stewart for the visit and the help. You guys let me know what you think.

This is the 48th buckle I have done.

D.C.

_________________
The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.

D.C. I like that you shortened the the tongue on this buckle. Why is there no tip for this buckle set? The soldering looks fairly clean except for some excess solder around the letters. I would like you to post some good close up pictures of the side and bottom of your flat graver. Would you do that for the forum? Would you go back and look at some of Greg's engraving and notice his cap cuts on the areas that he shades with a liner? You will need a wriggle cut on the inside of your bright cut border or even a fine line would look good. Take some practice sheet copper and concentrate on rolling your gravers from a high side angle to a flatter profile and smoothly come out of the cuts. Your backbone wriggle cut is too wide and attracts too much attention. Grind that graver to half of that width. It will be hard to work with at first but you will adapt quickly. It is nice to see your shade lines go all the way to the backbone. When cutting a bright cut border with a flat graver you must not only roll the graver but also change the cutting direction of the engraver towards the outside of the cut. Please let me know what you think about these comments. Thanks for showing us.

Leonard,
D.C. stopped by my house yesterday and showed me the buckle. There is no excess solder, the picture just makes it look that way. I have seen a number of pieces that D.C. has built and the saw work and soldering have always been extremely clean. It's just a matter of time till he gets his engraving tipped up and then we better look out.
Best wishes,
Stewart

Stewart
I have to agree, I have seen lots of D.C.s work. Always very clean. I kow he goes to great lenghts to make sure his solder and saw work is top notch. He has improved his engraving greatly in the last couple of months, and I agree, when he finally gets it all together, he will give us all a run for our money.
Leonard
Would you post some pictures of what your talking about in your reply? Most of it I savy, or think I do, but some photos would sure clear things up for lots of us. Also, post some pictures of your stuff for us to look at. I have seen whats on your web site, but I know you have some current pieces you could share whith us.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

Mike,
D.C. showed me the knife you did for him. Very nice work.
Stewart

Stewart
Thanks for the comment. I did that knife about 3 years ago. I hope I have improved a little since then. Still some things I need to work on, one of my goals for the new year.
I am really impressed with your work as well. I have looked at your web site several times. Do you get over here to Wilsons very often? When you do, holler I would like to meet up with you, I am only about 2 miles from Wilson. I should be spending more time over ther watching, but we are all busy. Well enough ramblin, thanks, holler when you get this way, I'll but ya lunch somewhere.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

I Don't know if this picture will help any. My engraving isn't much to look at. I believe that Greg's work would be way better to follow. I hope that you guys do not think that I am slamming D.C.'s work. I want to see him put out great work as much as anyone. You know me. He asked and I posted on what it looked like in the photo. If I saw it wrong, then I apologize.

Leonard
Thats a good looking buckle. The picture is a little fuzzy, but it looks like a real nice piece. Was this a Christmas order? I am sure someone was made real happy with it. I like the simple look of the scroll overlay, as well as the rest of the buckles. Nice work, keep postin em.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

Thanks for the good word Caveman. Buckle went out late summer. Here are the specs. About 2-7/8"X3-7/8", 16 ga. sterling, 18 ga.sterling overlays, 16 ga. 14K rose gold brand. He never said if he liked it or not. I like the "no news is good news" theory.

Leonard,

Thank you for the critique. I had to wait until I got to work this morning to post a reply as internet at my RV park is catch as catch can.

Shortening the tongue was a simple fix and I agreed totally. No need to beat the solder isssue as Stewart talked about that. Silver leak out is one of my pet peeves I am real particular about that.

I will take picts of my gravers next time I am home and post them. Stewart and I talked about that when I stopped by.

I have studied Greg's engraving and received some great feedback from him. I agree that there should be cap cuts above the liner cuts.

As far as the spine of the scroll goes, I usually use a 37 or 38 flat. The customer looked at some of my engraving and liked the wider wiggle line.

I did not understand some of the other things that you talked about. I was glad to see you post a picture though and I agree with the caveman meister, it is nice.

It might be a big help if you used my photo of the buckle and engraved the design that I used on a practice plate and show me what you are talking about.

Please post more photos of your work.

D.C.

_________________
The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.

I printed off your buckle picture and made notes on it. I hope it shows up. I hope that it helps. Letters are hard to fine line cut because of the round edges. If you are using a powered graver to do your bright cuts you will need to slow it down because your graver is finishing the bright cut before you get a chance to lay it down to make a wider cut. Cut or frost empty spaces. The "G" is out of proportion with the "S" because the top of the G does not extend far enough to the right. Adjust your scrolls so that they go to the borders. Look at the good engravers backbone cuts. You will not find this done with a wide flat graver. I will argue that until the day I die. They use a narrow liner or narrow flat. My backbone liner is no wider than .010". Sometimes it is too wide on small stuff. The graver that you use to do your backbone would be good to wriggle cut the border if it were a liner. Do not shy away from liners because they are hard to find and more money. You should have several of them. Overall I think that the soldering is good. I don't know what kind of solder that you used but I only use #65 silver solder and then I blue the steel in the kiln. I like the blue more than I like the black. I need to know where the tip is. If you are having trouble making a 1 piece tip let me know because a die is easy to make for them. Or send me the steel and I will dome some for you. Once the steel is cut to size it only takes seconds to dome one. In regards to your request for me to engrave a practice plate for you, here is my response to that, NOT! I have a better idea, you make up another buckle set and send it to me with return shipping and I will engrave it for you FOR FREE. I will even make the tip for you for free if you would like. I must tell you in advance, don't even think of sending a buckle set up here unless it is overlayed with sterling silver. If you would like to do this I would look fwd. to the engraving even though there are hundreds of people out there that would do a better job than me. Please give me a yes or no on my offer. In summary, I will encourage you to slow down on the engraving and place your cuts perfectly. The speed will come later.

Sorry for the picture placement. I hope you have a laptop.

Leonard
Howdy, hope all is well up your way. Hey how did you make your tip jig? I have been running ideas through my head, and have got a couple of ideas. Would you post a picture of yours, or a drawing and the deminsions? It would be a big help to not only myslef, but several others I thik. I make lots of tips, but dont use a jig, and I think it would speed things up a bit. Any help or info you could provide would be great. Thanks and I look forward to hearing form you. lso let me know if I can help you in any way.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

Caveman, tell me about the die ideas you have in your head and post the pictures of them please. We will go from there. Thanks

I will run em down when I get back, I'm outta here for several days.
Yall be good.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com