Sep 272015
 

I did a practice Scottish Lock pattern  earlier this year (see Celtic Engraving below) and now Archie Owens has acquired the gun and made a new lock and has asked me to engrave it.  His grandfather fought with the Cameronian Highlanders in the First World War, and he wants to celebrate his Scottish ancestry by tying the gun to the memory of his grandfather.  He has the Glengarry (cap) and cap badge belonging to his Grandfather and would like elements of the badge incorporated into the lock design.  It is not too far from what I did before, so I now have to do some sketches and get them approved by Archie.  I will keep this blog updated as I go along…..   Now completed and delivered, but stupidly I forgot to get a pull of it!

blank lock

cap-badge

The Cameronian Highlander’s glengarry badge

CELTIC-COMPLETE

The completed lock – click on the picture – you’ll get a better resolution!   (browser back to exit)

Here is the final work, click below to see the steps along the way……..

I have started to think about a design for the lock, and will put up my rough sketches as I go along;-

sketch0

The Bugle looks a bit uncomfortable here, and the foliage is a bit fussy!

sketch1

The bugle is better, but the foliage isn’t right, and the name looks at an angle because of the lock shape, it is probably better in the middle of the nose of the lock as in the third sketch?    Where does the Mullet ( 5 pointed star) on the badge go?  The cock screw was suggested by Archie, but its difficult to mix the 5 fold symmetry of the Mullet with the 2 fold symmetry of the screwdriver slot while retaining enough metal for the screwdriver to get a grip on.

Time for more tries….

lock-ok

That looks a bit more like it!  I think it needs the cock screw remade with a low conical head to accommodate the mullet, I’ll have to see about making a new one – probably a UNC thread? Time for a neater sketch……

(Still trying to get round to this business has got in the way of pleasure… again!)

lock dec 15

Refinements of the last  one – I think this is fine – maybe a bit less fuss on the cock – maybe do without the border line for a more modern appearance ?   – what do you think Archie?

Having got Christmas and the New Year out of the way I’ve had a chance to get on with the lock – Archie was happy with the drawing above so I did a trial engraving on a piece of flat steel – I struggled a bit to get smooth curves and fiddled with my sharpening to see if my tools were not as they should be – I even made a new, more precise jig for sharpening the heels and re-aligned my main face jig, but I came to the conclusion that the surface of the steel was a bit variable – I have read comments about the difficulty of engraving the  surface of cold rolled steel before, and its a real bore filing off the ‘orange peel’ surface to get a suitably smooth surface so I have resolved to buy a length of flat strip in EN32 case hardenable steel ( about .18 carbon) and take it to a firm with a surface grinder to put a better finish on it and remove any surface inhomogenetities.

Anyway, her are a couple of pictures of the trial lock – I can see a few things that need to be corrected on the final one, but that is why one does a trial…

trial lock-1-16

trial-lock-1-16

(The outline of the lock was cut using my Gravermax machine as I was feeling lazy – but I had  a very short heel on the tool and it was difficult to stop it diving into the metal – but it serves its purpose, even if the line is  uneven.

 Posted by at 12:18 am

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