How to Hand-engrave a ID bracelet in Leaf script

[Francisco Jose Apellaniz]

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TUTORIAL

How to Hand-engrave a ID bracelet in Leaf script

Materials:
- A piece of Wood
- Sealing Wax (I make it myself, but you can buy it anyway…)
- A ruler (preferibly, metallic, and thin).
- Plasticine (normal one like the one the scholars use)
- A propelling pencil (0,3 to 0,5 mm)
- A 120 graver polish (V-Point geometry)
- A jar filled with acetone or methanol. (Sometimes I’ve even used Cologne or whisky).
- An alcohol lamp (I made them myself with a tin can; they have the advantage of not exploding and spread the alcohol if they happen to be made out of crystal.. BTW… this has happened to me once…)
- And, of course,….. A customer bringing a ID bracelet to have it engraved.

Process:

1º We stick the piece to the piece of wood, to which, previously we have put a bit of warm sealing wax. We can use the sealing wax for many other future occassions.

2º We heat the wood together with the sealing wax with the alcohol lamp, and we stick the bracelet to be engraved. We wait for it to cool…

3º We touch with the plasticine the purse (no drag, just sweet touches, like putting a cookie into your glass of milk…  )

4º With the ruler and the propelling pencil we draw 3 parallel lines. We start from the bottom. The upper one at double the distance of the mid one. (Great for Leaf script or any other font having capital letters). If you’re an skilful guy you may only draw 2 lines, but it’s better with 3 because all capital letters and “high ones”, like “b” or “d” come to the same height.

5º We start to draw the letter. If we do it wrong or make a mistake, we softly touch with the finger tip, and it will be partly deleted; then we draw again.

6º We start to engrave. The piece of wood can be fixed – if desired- to a engraver vise. I use the engraver vise, It’s much more confortable and allows you greater freedom of movements.
We turn the bracelet with the left hand, and engrave with the right one (This of course, in the event that you’re right handed); it’s not the graver the one which has to turn, but the piece. You can first start with all of the wide ones, and then go for the thin ones. This is a good approach as then the lines will all be parallel, and the engraving will be quicker. We must however, pay attention to the joins between thin and thick ones.


7º Once we’re done with the text, we can end up with a flourish below.

8º We start to heat again the bracelet with the alcohol lamp, closing the bracelet to the lamp for a very short time (1 or 2 seconds). If it happens to become burnt, we’ll have to put it into acid to remove the dark tone that it would get… We detach the bracelet in that way.

9º We drop the piece into acetone for 10 to 20 minutes….

10º There it is! …… We now Smile….


Kind regards to all colleagues from the other side of the ocean…

Francisco Jose Apellaniz