Hand Engraving Glossary - by Roger Bleile -  Sponsored by Steve Lindsay  -  Leave Feedback                   

GAME SCENE – Also known as a hunting scene, the game scene featuring wildlife, dogs, and sometimes hunters in a rustic setting has been the stock in trade of arms engravers for many centuries. Game scenes can be line cut, bulino, low relief, high relief, or inlaid with precious metal. Italian: scene di caccia or paesaggi, German; jagdszenen, French: scènes de chasse, Spanish: escena de caza.

Pictured from left is a simple line cut game scene on a German shotgun from 1943. Next, the gamescene features raised gold inlayed grouse and at right a highly detailed "bulino" game scene on the sidelock of an Italian Famars by Steve Lindsay.

GERMAN SCROLL – Small to medium, watch spring like scrolls with 6 to 9 identical, internal leaves. German scroll has been the standard style of scroll decoration on Austrian and German arms for over 100 years. This style is similar to what British engravers call large scroll. German speaking engravers refer to this style of ornamentation as Neuenglische Arabesken.

At left is pictured a close up of a typical, single "German" scroll from an Austrian shotgun. At right is shown the floor plate of a highly ornate German shotgun featuring profuse treatment with Neuenglische Arabesken or "German" scroll.

GLENDO CORP./GRS – A manufacturer and distributor of tools and accessories for hand engravers and jewelers. Located in Emporia, Kansas, USA, GRS founder Don Glaser co-invented the Gravermeister™ and was involved in the development of other air impact engraving tools manufactured by GRS.

GLENSTEEL™ - A proprietary high speed steel alloy used in graver blanks manufactured and sold by GRS Engraving Tools of Emporia, Kansas.

GLIDE-LOCK™ VISE – A highly sophisticated and finely machined engraver’s block designed and manufactured by Steve Lindsay Tools and Engraving in Kearney, Nebraska. http://www.handengravetools.com/vises.htm

GOLIATH VISE - The Goliath 4140 Chrome-Moly Vise is a precision-machined vise manufactured by Steve Lindsay Tools and Engraving in Kearney, Nebraska. http://www.handengravetools.com/vises.htm

GOLDSMITH - An artisan who makes jewelry and other objects out of gold or other precious metals. A master goldsmith must be proficient at engraving as well as casting, designing, forming, piercing, polishing, soldering, and stone setting among other things.

GOLDTAUSCHIERUNG – German speaking engraver’s term for the inlaying of precious metal, particularly gold.

GOTHIC - Outside the USA Gothic script is also known as Blackletter or Gothic minuscule, which was a script (or family of scripts) of the Latin alphabet used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to 1500. It continued to be used for the German language until the twentieth century. Blackletter is sometimes called Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language.

Within the USA "Gothic" is another name for sans-serif typefaces which do not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".

The gothic letter, sometimes-called block letters, are constructed of strokes relatively even in weight. Slightly thinner strokes join main stems and curves to avoid giving the letter a dense look.

Gothic, Blackletter, and Old English, along with Roman and script are the most common styles of lettering cut by hand engravers worldwide.

GRAPE LEAF – Ornamentation, which incorporates swirling vines, grape leaves and grapes in a stylized pattern. Grape leaf is one of the less frequently encountered styles of gun engraving that was more popular in the 19th century.

Pictured is an example of grape leaf scroll framing a game scene on an antique Marlin lever action rifle.

GRAND MASTERS – An annual engraving workshop sponsored by the GRS Corp. that features two internationally renowned "Grand Master" engravers. Each master teaches a five day workshop to experienced engravers who have been selected based upon their past work and potential ability to absorb a high level of instruction.

GRAVER – A general term used for any tool made to engrave metal. Traditional gravers have a blade type shape and are manufactured in a variety of point types that include, bevel, flat, knife, lozenge, onglette, oval, round, and square. Traditional gravers are available in both tool steel and high-speed steel.

Today many engravers use 3/32” round or square gravers that they shape to their needs using a sharpening fixture or sharpening template. This type of graver is particularly popular with engravers using powered, freehand engraving tools though such gravers are often used in burin handles and chisel handles as well.

GRAVER BLANK – An un-ground, un-sharpened graver. A graver blank may be either of the traditional blade style or 3/32” round or square stock. Graver blanks are made of either carbide, C-Max™, Glensteel™, tungsten carbide, tool steel, high speed steel, Lindsay Carbalt™, Lindsay M42™, Mo-Max™ cobalt, or X7™. Trade names on graver blanks include Gesswein, Grobet, GRS, Lindsay, Mo-Max, Muller, and Vallorbe.

Pictured is an assortment of graver blanks. From top the blanks are round, 3/32" square, and traditional.

GRAVERMACH™ – A freehand engraving system that is powered by compressed air and contains a spring-loaded piston within a hand piece of various size and shape, depending upon intended use. The Gravermach™ is capable of 400 to 8000 strokes per minute operating speed, however the handpieces it operates are only capable of 4000 and uses a dual-stage regulator.  The impact power is regulated via a progressive foot control. The Gravermach™ is generally, a more sophisticated and costly version of the Gravermax™. There are five components to a Gravermach™ system: control box, hand piece, a graver, foot control, and air compressor.

The Gravermach™ is not an “engraving machine” in the sense that it is completely controlled free hand by the engraver. Its main advantage over hammer & chisel is that the piston within the hand piece takes the place of a chasing hammer thus freeing one of the engraver’s hands to turn the engraving block as well as greater control of the graver than can be supplied by manual power alone.

Manufactured by the GRS Corp of Emporia, Kansas.

GRAVERMAX SC™– A freehand engraving system that is powered by compressed air and contains a spring-loaded piston within a hand piece of various size and shape, depending upon intended use. The Gravermax™ uses a single-stage air regulator. The impact power is regulated via a progressive foot control. Generally, a simpler and less costly version of the Gravermach™. There are five components to a Gravermax system: control box, hand piece, a graver, foot control, and air compressor.

The Gravermax™ is not an “engraving machine” in the sense that it is completely controlled free hand by the engraver. Its main advantage over hammer & chisel is that the piston within the hand piece takes the place of a chasing hammer thus freeing one of the engraver’s hands to turn the engraving block as well as greater control of the graver than can be supplied by manual power alone.

Manufactured by the GRS Corp of Emporia, Kansas.

GRAVERMEISTER™ – The trade name for the first pneumatic-powered freehand engraving tool. Engravers John Rohner and Don Glaser developed the Gravermeister™. The device uses an ordinary graver set in a hand piece that is connected to a length of pneumatic tubing. The tubing is connected to a vacuum motor that provides an alternating pulse of suction, which draws back a piston against a spring within the hand piece then releases it. The Gravermeister™ differs from more modern and advanced air powered hand engraving devices in that it does not require a source of compressed air from an air compressor or pressurized tank. Four components are required to engrave with a Gravermeister, the vacuum pump unit, hand piece, a graver, and foot control.

The Gravermeister™ is not an “engraving machine” in the sense that it is completely controlled free hand by the engraver. Its main advantage over hammer & chisel is that the piston within the hand piece takes the place of a chasing hammer thus freeing one of the engraver’s hands to turn the engraving block as well as greater control of the graver than can be supplied by manual power alone.

Manufactured by the GRS Corp of Emporia, Kansas.

GRAVEURKUGEL – German: Literally, engraving ball. A “block” or engraver’s block.

GRECIAN FRETS – See FRETWORK.

GRIFFIN – A mythical creature, part eagle and part lion, sometimes used as an engraved motif, especially pre-20th century.

GRIP SHIELD – The portion of a single action revolver, particularly a Colt Single Action Army or copies thereof, which is connected to the top of the back strap and is in the shape of a shield. The grip shield of a revolver is often the subject of engraved ornamentation or a motif.

Pictured is the grip shield (arrow) and backstrap of a Colt SAA engraved by Ken Hurst of North Carolina in the 1970's.

GROTESQUE – A decorative motif characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms, often interwoven with foliage or similar figures; the natural may be distorted into absurdity, ugliness or caricature. Grotesques were especially popular with arms embellishers from the 17th through the 19th centuries. At one time the province of European engravers, grotesques are now occasionally found engraved by Americans. Italian engravers use the term: Macherone.

Pictured is a flush gold inlayed grotesque on a knife by Steve Lindsay and a pair of line cut grotesques on the floor plate of a German Gustloff shotgun.

GUILLOCHE – In ornamental art, any pattern made by interlacing curved lines. Guilloché is an engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically etched or cut into metal with very fine detail. Specifically, it involves a technique of engine turning, called guilloché in French after the French engineer “Guillot”, who invented a machine “that could scratch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces.” The machine improved upon the more time-consuming practice of making similar designs by hand, allowing for greater delicacy, precision, and closeness of the line, as well as greater speed. Guilloche patterns are often found engraved into the cases of antique pocket watches and in the underlying metal of objects covered with translucent vitrified enamel. Guilloche patterns are frequently engraved into banknote printing plates by the use of a cycloidal engine thereby making the printed notes difficult to counterfeit.

Pictured at left is an object engraved with a guillouche pattern and overlaid with translucent blue vitreous enamel. Next are two discs engraved with guilloche patterns and last a banknote printed from a plate engraved with guilloche tracery.

GUN ENGRAVING – In the US, Great Britain, and Europe, gun engravers make up the majority of master level hand engravers who are skilled at all allied facets of the engraver’s art. To be considered a master level gun engraver, one must be proficient in the design and execution of: numerous varieties of traditional scroll and border work, precious metal inlay and overlay, sculpted relief figures, scenes, and scrollwork, banknote, line cut and bulino scenes and figures as well as lettering.

The gun engraver must also have an understanding of the function of different gun parts and be able to have good tool control on the complex convex, concave, and flat surfaces of guns. In the US, most freelance gun engravers work for an aftermarket where they are given guns to engrave that are already hardened, finished, and assembled. As a result they must have some gunsmithing skills to disassemble, strip the finish, anneal the metal when necessary or be able to engrave in the hardened state then refinish and reassemble the gun.

In Great Britain and Europe, gun engravers usually work for gun factories or cottage industry gunmakers who provide the gun parts pre-hardened and disassembled, as do American factory gun engravers.

Forty years ago the skills of the hand engraver were rapidly becoming a dieing art. Hand engraving was being supplanted in die making by progressively more sophisticated 3 dimensional milling pantographs, which are today controlled by computers. In the jewelry, tableware, and award businesses where most call for engraving was in the form of lettering, inscriptions, and monograms, the relatively inexpensive manual diamond drag pantograph displaced the hand engraver. And the once fertile field of work for watch case engravers had long since died as the mass-produced wristwatch replaced the pocket watch.

At that low point in the history of hand engraving it was only the gun engravers who were keeping the art alive. There were two reasons for this. First, the surfaces of a firearm were too complex in nature to adapt machinery meant for work only on flat surfaces, which even if it could be adapted, could not produce the kind of cuts available to the hand engraver. Secondly, gun collectors and those who use expensive engraved guns tend to be highly traditional in their view of things connected with guns and therefore disdained mass-produced decoration. Even then by the 1960’s there were only a small number of gun engravers left in the United States.

A renaissance of hand engraving began in the late 1960’s to early 1980’s. This was the result of the convergence of three things. First was the publication of important and motivating works on the subject of gun engraving. In 1965, author and gun historian R. L. Wilson complied the engraving record of 19th century gun engraver L. D. Nimschke into a well-received book. Then well-known engraver Jack Prudhomme wrote a book entitled “Gun Engraving Review” which coincided with an exhibition of his work at the Norton Art Gallery. At the same time John Amber, the editor of the “Gun Digest” featured engraving prominently in all his publications. Then designer/engraver James B. Meek wrote a most comprehensive how to book entitled “The Art of Engraving” (which is still in print today).

The second thing of significance was the invention of the first practical and successful power operated, freehand engraving tool known as the Gravermeister which is pneumatic and works off of a vacuum pump. The Gravermeister was followed into production by the NgraveR later known as the Magnagraver that operates off of an electric motor connected to a flex-shaft. These two engraving tools along with Meek’s book opened the door to hand engraving to many in the US who had struggled trying to learn hammer & chisel or burin engraving without any means of personal instruction.

The third thing in this chain of events was the founding of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America (FEGA) in 1980 that coincided with the publication of “American Engravers” by a relatively new engraver named Roger Bleile. From a formational meeting of 21 engravers, FEGA has grown into an organization of over 600 engravers worldwide.

As a result of these three things more and varied books were published on the subject of gun engraving in English, French, Italian, and German. As engravers matured, training classes began to proliferate around the US with the most prominent at GRS headquarters in Emporia Kansas. These classes became a magnet for those who wished to revive the engraving arts outside the field of guns thus hand engraved jewelry, knives and even motorcycles and custom cars became part of the engraving renaissance.

Today with Internet tools like this glossary and hand engraving forums as well as highly sophisticated freehand engraving tools like the Lindsay Palm Control and Gravermach, the art of hand engraving is not only alive but thriving with engravers and patrons of the art.