[MikeDubber]

Like Carl, I'm one of the old guard who learned to engrave with the hammer and chisel. We had little choice at the time, the GraverMeister did'nt arrive until ten years into my career....and I recall that nearly everyone - both engravers and clients - resisted the change to air power.

We've been through all of those politics of resistance and now air power is accepted by most everyone. There are still a few hold outs, and I occasionally hear that they continue to sell themselves as engraving purists...professing that they alone do "real engraving" and everyone else does "machine engraving." I hear these things from potential clients who have been searching for engravers, gathering prices and opinions. They ask how I engrave. I usually reply, "Why do you ask?" I seldom answer the question unless they insist, then (mostly because I'm opinionated, old, mean, and don't need their work anyway) I tend to unload profusely about stupid people and old ideas. I have no argument with those who want to engrave with hammers and chisels - until they try to elevate themselves above the rest of us.

I'm happy that I have the skills to engrave the old way. In fact, I always demonstrate the process sometime during my classes, saying that if folks are intested, they should try it, it's fun! My hammers and chisels still work just fine and I enjoy picking them up and chasing an occasional line or two. To amuse myself, I've even cut sections of scroll patterns by switching to my hammer and chisel mid-stream to see if I can really see the difference. I find that if I chisel very, very slowly, that the differences are so subtle that no one would ever know.

But why would I want to engrave really, really slowly with my hammer and chisel? That just gets me back to stupid people and old ideas.

Mike Dubber