Who are the best, most skilled bulino engravers in America? I'm considering having a bulino-engraved duck removed and a grouse added in it's spot on the bottom of a shotgun receiver. Is this feasible? Would it be horribly expensive? Thanks for your opinion.

Gournet is my favorite. He's does extrodinary work, is trained in all aspects of engraving and he's a cool cat too. In addition to his training in Belgium and France, has also been a student at Bottega Incisioni C. Giovanelli. I believe Christian Decamillis has been to Bottega Incisioni as well.

Dustin

I wonder if there are ways to preserve such fine work, since just a little rust could destroy it? Beyond preservatives, would lacquering, such as is done to protect case coloring, work OK?

Buzz - have you checked out FEGA's master engravers list:

FEGA

Steve, any of the typical list of suspects that protect case color from mechanical abrasion will also protect engraving. Same arguments for and against.

DDA

Buzz,

There are more exceptionally skilled engravers in the US than you may imagine. In my most recent book, American Engravers-The 21st Century, there are featured numerous engravers who could do your project.

When you ask about "bulino" engravers it would be good to clarify a bit. Bulino is just the Italian word for burin or a hand pushed graver. Today, almost any finely cut scene or figure is often refered to as "bulino" engraving.

The technique used by the Fracassis and other famous Italian engravers is known as "puntini." With the puntini technique the entire scene or figure is made up of tiny dots that have been picked into the steel at varying depths and closeness to each other. Done correctly, the puntini technique can give a high degree of photorealism and yet it is the most fragile when exposed to casual handling.

Also keep in mind that when the engraver originally executed the engraving (duck), the gun was in the white, prehardened state. The gun then underwent the hardening and finishing process. On your gun, the engraver will have to obliterate the duck from the hardened surface then smooth the field to perfection then engrave the grouse into the hardened steel. It can be done but is much more complicated than the work that the original engraver of the duck had to do.

Many of the best engravers in America use a combination of fine lines and dots to accomplish a finely detailed scene or figure. While not technically true to the puntini technique, such work produces exceptionally fine renderings that are more durable than puntini and can more easily be seen without twisting and turning the gun to get just the right light on the subject.

Now, having said all of that, I will name some American engravers off the top of my head that can engrave a finely detailed grouse for you. Jim Blair, Winston Churchill, Ray Cover, Jr., Christian DeCamillis, Theirry Duguet, Eric Gold, Geoffroy Gournet, Lee Griffiths, Brian Hochstrat, Kurt Horvath, Jason Marchifava, Marty Rabeno, David Riccardo, Robert Swartley, and Sam Welch.

I have probably missed someone but any of those I named can do exceptionally fine "bulino" work. At the same time some of them may not want to get involved with destroying another engraver's work and replacing it with their's. Personally, I would rather begin with a clean canvass because of all the grunt work required before beginning to engrave.

Cheers,
Roger

I have had both Lee Griffiths and Geoffroy Gournet engrave for me. Geofroy does great work, however I am leaning towards Lee. Lee has fatastic work, easy to work with and faster turnaround.

BTW Lee did an impressive Mauser Broomhandle for a client. It has a WWI motif w/ a Triwing and a Spad in a dogfight on one side and a Maxim machinegun and crew on the other side. The magazine had a what can be best described as a "figurehead" that Lee hand carved and placed on the front. Very creative and shows he can do more that just phez, ducks, grouse and woodcock. His engraving is sharp and does not require tipping, or holding it the right light in order to see it.

Thanks Gents for all the informative replies. I am going to ponder this for awhile. The gun has bobwhite quail on left receiver, pheasants on the right receiver and a mallard duck (standing) on the bottom of the receiver. The mallard is beautiful, but it is beyond me why a mallard was placed there with quail and pheasants on the sides of the receiver. I might be better off to just leave it alone, but I'm going to think about it for awhile. Thanks for the interesting comments.

Remember what we talked about 2 days ago----resist, resist my friend.

buzz, if you shoot enough with your reingraved gun to wear off the bulino bird, you are indeed a lucky guy. After all of the fine experiences causing that much wear, just have your engraver pick up the detail again. Then off to the wars a second time.

Buzz, did you go forward with replacing the duck with a grouse on your gun?

I'm coming back to this thread after getting my 16 ga. M-21 back from Ray Cover. Ray was among the engravers featured in his book that Roger Bleile particularly recommended in this thread. Roger's book led me to contact Ray and a few others to assess their interest in my modest project -- a remembrance of my best springer spaniel, who went suddenly blind of SARDS at age eight.

Ray worked from a few photos of Abby, along with grouse, pheasant and feather images I sent him. To say I'm pleased with his work is an understatement. This is the gun I usually carried when hunting over Abby. I've liked seeing her there when out with it this fall.

Mark Beasland polished the frame and re-rust blued the barrels. Art Isaacson blued the frame. I'll soon get the hinge pin screw alignment back to horizontal.

Forgive the amateur photo quality, I have only an inexpensive autofocus and not much clue of how to use it.

Jay

Gunflint- off the charts!

I am not a big Mod21 guy, but that is one Mod21 I would love to own. Elegant understatement as an art form. (Nice piece of walnut, too).

Hi Jay; Your Model 21 is beautiful. I'm sure you will treasure her for many years to come! In terms of my gun, no I did not have the duck removed. Finally came to the conclusion it would be a lot more trouble than what it's worth. I really like the grouse on the side panel of your 21. Your dog is very pretty too! Buzz

Thanks for the generous comments guys. My photo of the pheasant doesn't show it as well, Ray cut it with the same sharp detail as the grouse. The images draw the eye, but I'm really pleased with the depth and texture of the scroll and borders too.

Jay

Jay, I should have mentioned the pheasant too. It's nice too and I like the scroll engraving as well. Very tasteful. I'm guessing you are a grouse and pheasant hunter being from MN. I am a die hard grouse hunter myself, but go more for quail than pheasant. Unfortunately, in west Texas where I hunt we are entering our 4th bad year with very few birds. I'm very worried bobwhite quail hunting may be a thing of the past in the United States. I fear what has happened in the Midwest and deep south is heading west.....sure hope not, but I fear it is a real possibility. Only time will tell, I guess.

A fitting tribute for your Springer. I like the tailfeather on the lever.

Mark Beasland suggested a tailfeather on the toplever, said he'd seen and really liked a toplever with a grouse feather. I would never have thought of doing this, but liked the idea right off. I hunt pheasants much more than grouse, so for me it had to be pheasant.

Jay

Beautiful gun. The understated engraving is perfect. It must be a joy to carry in the field.

Beautiful gun Jay! I would far prefer it to any factory job I've seen but then I'm only an engraver and not a sophisticated collector who worships at the alter of factory engraving.

Ray Cover is one of today's best and just keeps getting better.

Regards,
Roger

Your book was invaluable when I set out on this project Roger, and allowed me to go ahead with confidence. Thank you!

Jay

Charlie, what is the material used in your inlays, if they are, in fact, inlays.

Not inlays Bill, Ray Cover cut both the scroll and bulino images in the polished frame, Art Isaacson reblued (Du-Lite as originally), then Ray applied a "French gray" treatment to remove bluing from the images. He told me the images are essentially bare metal, should be kept lightly oiled or waxed.

Jay