doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bulino Engraving

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.