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The Art of Hand Engraving : A calligrapher's ultimate guide to precision.

If you’re a calligrapher or have been doing calligraphy for a while, I am sure you must be intrigued by hand engraving & you want to know everything about it or you might have already tried your hands on it & want to go deeper to understand more about engraving.


Whether you’re looking for a new hobby or you want to expand your business offerings, I am happy to share this guide with you. Let’s dive deeper into the world of engraving.



If you already know how to do calligraphy, then of course engraving is a bit easy. But what I have seen over & over is how easily one forgets to apply the rules of calligraphy to engraving. What you are trying to achieve is calligraphy engraving, so it is incorrect if you are not applying the basic rules of calligraphy. So, let’s start from the beginning.


There are 3 steps involved in calligraphy engraving


  1. Drawing of letterforms or Design

  2. Actual Engraving

  3. Buffing ( Applying colour on engraving )


Let's go through each step in detail.


Drawing of letterforms or Design



If you want to offer best engraving services or you want your engraving to look like a pro, this is the step where you need to spend most of your time. Drawing your letterforms, planning the layout & drafting it beautifully together is the crucial step of engraving. Many a times people avoid that & focus only on using the best engraving tool. But remember the engraving tool is only going to repeat what you’ve already drawn on a particular surface. So spend a good amount of time on planning your strokes & then execute it with the help of an engraver. I frequently do rough sketches on paper & then I copy the best design on the surface that I am going to engrave.


Another important thing is to understand the difference between calligraphy on paper & calligraphy engraving. When we do calligraphy with a calligraphy pen, we can create thick & thin strokes with a single pen. In pointed pen calligraphy we can change the pressure on our nibs to get such effects & in other forms of calligraphy we can change the angle of the nib to get thick or thin strokes. But the engraving tool is unable to create thick & thin strokes with a change of pressure or angle.


Then how do you do calligraphy with an engraving tool? Well, it’s simple. We draw our letterforms & use the techniques of faux calligraphy. (Write your word, then go over certain parts of your words to make them bold & fill it in to create a look of a real calligraphy)


Yup, that’s how everyone does it. There is no other option & the way to make your calligraphy engraving look beautiful is to first understand how the real calligraphy alphabets look & then recreating them using faux calligraphy techniques. You can also draw some floral patterns or designs around your lettering to make it even more beautiful.


Tools I use for drawing


As engraving happens mostly on glass, metal or other surfaces than paper, you need different tools than a regular pencil. I have shared below some tools that I regularly use for engraving.


DRAWING TECHNIQUES


Flat Surface Vs Round Surface



Drawing on a flat surface is like a smooth ride in a park but drawing on a round surface is like a rollercoaster ride full of ups & downs. Your pen will quickly go in other direction on round surface making your alphabets go dancing here & there. Sometimes you might call it your unique style but of course that’s not going to work every time. What helps me is to keep a folded napkin below my hand while drawing on round surfaces. That gives more stability to my hand & things are much in control.


Freehand design Vs recreating a particular Design



Freehand design is again very easy as you are free to create whatever you want. But when it comes to recreating a particular design or lettering, you need to be extra careful. While recreating a specific logo or lettering, I take a printout in the exact size & then redraw it looking carefully at each element OR if I am working on a transparent glass, I paste the printout inside the glass & then make a drawing. Do not try to engrave directly on the pasted printout though, as you will see 2 reflections while engraving & it will be very confusing. While doing engraving you will think everything is going well but once you remove the printout you will wonder why your engraving is looking asymmetrical. In engraving, what is done is done, you cannot go back to erase it. It’s your final design. So, I always prefer to draw first, remove the printout & then do the engraving.


 

Engraving


Once the intricate drawing part is done, then comes the actual engraving, like retracing of what you have already done. Before going ahead, I take a pause to relook at my design & to make sure everything is perfect. Now I am ready to engrave. Usually I engrave quickly as the pen marks can easily wipe out with a touch of hand. Sometimes while lifting glasses or just by mistake you touch the drawing & voila… the details are gone! Doing it again is a lot of work so I keep my engraving tools next to me to secure my drawings quickly. If I am tired, I make sure at least I do engraving outlines before taking a break.



While drawing needs just a pen, engraving needs a bit more preparation. You need to have your safety goggles & masks on all the time. You just can’t start doing engraving without these safety measures.


I use following tools for Engraving. You can get most of them from Amazon


  • Protective Mask

  • Safety Glasses

  • Adjustable Wrist Brace

  • Engraving Tool ( I use either Ink Me This or Yokefellow )

  • Diamond Burs

  • Small Towel / Napkin

  • Foundation Brush or Blush Brush

  • Q-Tips


Though engraving looks like a fast process in videos, don’t fall for that. Engraving is as slow process as calligraphy. You need to trace every stroke carefully, keeping in mind that it’s a drawing & not calligraphy. Usually calligraphers apply a lot of pressure on downstrokes ( thick areas of a letter) & less pressure on upstrokes. If you are using this same technique for engraving, all you’ll see is a shaky or crooked engraving. That’s not what you want right? So follow the slow speed of calligraphy but apply even pressure consistently whether it's upstroke or downstroke to get smooth engraving strokes. Initially, you will struggle but after doing it for several times, you’ll get better at it. Also, start practicing on a flat surface first before doing engraving on round surfaces.


For engraving tool, I use different speed settings for different surfaces like 30000 to 40000 RPM for glass, 6000 to 8000 RPM for metal, 25000 RPM for wood & 30000 to 32000 for porcelain. Explore different settings & see what works best for you.


Fixing mistakes like a PRO


We are all human, and mistakes are bound to happen. Especially in calligraphy and engraving. The real challenge lies not in avoiding mistakes but in knowing how to correct them gracefully.


Whenever I make an error while engraving or writing, I don’t panic. Instead, I find a way to blend it seamlessly into the design. One of my favorite techniques is adjusting the stroke thickness. In calligraphy, uppercase letters naturally have two kinds of shades : primary shade and secondary shade ( a slightly thinner shade ). If I make a mistake, I subtly transform that stroke into a secondary shade. This helps to maintain the flow of the letter while covering up any unwanted lines or inconsistencies. By doing this, I not only correct the mistake but also enhance the aesthetics of the piece. After all it's the right approach that turns imperfections into something beautiful.


 

Buffing


After engraving, I take off all the small particles with a blush brush & wipe the whole surface with a tissue ( to get rid off pen marks ) & then I apply rub n buff. Generally I enjoy to keep engraving just like that. It works well for many products, especially colour coated items such as water bottles or mugs etc. but where there is no option, you had to apply buff.



Just put a little bit of buff on the engraved area using premium cotton ear bud & clean it off with a tissue immediately. The buff stays in the etched part & then you need to carefully clean the excess buff. Now let me tell you, applying buff is easy but cleaning buff is a whole another story. You need to rub it constantly until it comes off completely from the area where you don’t need buffing. Frankly, I don’t enjoy buffing much. I find the first 2 parts of the process ( drawing & engraving ) quite pleasant but buffing makes me go crazy. I always feel that buffing is not for me. But, you might enjoy the process. So give it a try & let me know.


I use Rub n Buff Gold Leaf & Silver Leaf for almost all of my projects. No one usually goes beyond gold or silver. But just to make your life a bit easier… if you have choice to select the colour of your buff… always go for silver. You will thank me later.


You can watch my engraving process video here.


 

Things we should not engrave!


Oh & this blog post is just not complete without sharing the horrific experience I had in 2023. I was sitting quietly in my studio over weekend & was engraving a beautiful message on a bottle. The sketch came out perfect so I started engraving. I was about to complete & something unexpected happened… a loud noise! I felt a sudden pain in my forehead & before I knew it my husband rushed over to help, turning off the engraver which was still on in my right hand while I remove a small glass piece from my forehead with my left hand. The bottle exploded. It was a bit of a shock but thankfully there wasn’t anything too serious. I looked back, my daughter was standing there in shock but when I saw her safe & sound, I felt a deep sense of relief.


Phew ! Not so cool or memorable experience, but accidents might happen & that’s the number one reason why we should take all the safety precautions while engraving. My glasses & mask saved me big time. So always wear them while Engraving.



Initially I couldn’t understand why it happened but now I know. So sharing few things here shared with me by fellow artists :


  • If the bottle is pressurised, during the engraving process, the bur vibrates & etched straight into the bottle, making the glass weaker & thinner & it tends to explode due to the air pressure inside the bottle. The pressure builds up as we continuously move the bottle while engraving, hence making it risky to engrave

  • If the bottle has cage over cork that means it’s a pressurised bottle : Telisa ( roesseinart )

  • Look at the corkscrew, if that has some metal wire wrap around the cap, they are usually carbonated : Benjawan ( Benjawan Calligraphy )

  • Engraving services should not be offered on pressurized & sparkling drinks (champagne, sparkling wine), carbonated drinks (pops, soda, sparkling water) & fermented drinks (Kombucha, beer bottles etc. : Telisa ( roesseinart )


After this incident I was so afraid to engrave again but then I started working with some glasses & slowly I could come back to engraving. I rarely engrave bottles these days but I keep exploring other surfaces. Sharing some of the beautiful engraving projects I worked on after this experience.



I hope this was insightful & this inspires you to engrave more beautifully with all the safety precautions!

If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about this blog post, feel free to drop them in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you!


Cheers! Keep Writing! Keep Inspiring!

 
 
 

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