[shonn]

Well here is my most recent project a 12 gauge single shotgun that my father had laying around in his car garage it was very rusty and pitted with rust took me some time to just sand it down and get it fairly smooth to even start the process. After doing my smoke pull I started drawing out my design (by hand) but I have learned that I should use my computer more my lines are not as even as I would have liked them to be. Even though this is my first shot gun I have ever engraved on, with the different curves and fun obstacles I really did learn a lot on what next I need to do when I do my next gun,
For one thing I cut my outlines way too deep and that caused problems later on when I removed the back ground my outlines where either to thick or to thin, and I think my scroll heads are too thick and I will need to make adjustments next time I draw them out, I plan on using my adobe illustrator more for the lines to be more even. I did like the shading and I got much better at it on the second side (the side without the name “sears on it”) here is some pics of the process that I went through, the only problem is I didn’t take pitchers of it when it was very rusty to show you what had to be done to get it ½ way shiny.
I added some gun blueing at the end to give it more of a old look and it kinda took some of the luster away from it I don’t know if I like it with the blueing or not( I can always take it off later I suppose) and with my pitchers I can see more of my shading mistakes but practice like this will only help to improve the skills .








this was very fun to do. maybe after 10 more years of doing it the work i am turning out will be more like yours.

or i can think of it this way for all you new people to engraving this will make you feel better it is hard to compare work with others that have been doing engraving for most all of there life.