I viewed an interesting short film on U-tube this morning about Boxall & Edmiston. What I found most interesting was the machine they used for engraving their guns. I think they said it was a pair of lazers that eroded steel, and they use some sort of Cad system to design the engraving.

Of course, that is in England.

I am curious if anyone has had a chance to look at the quality of such engraving (it must be halfway decent if its going on high grade guns), and whether such machines are in use here in the U.S. to engrave high grade guns.

Laser engraving machines are now used by most all jewelers; the engraving is not the same as cut engraving although from a distance, it might look good to some. The laser engraving I have seen, looks like it was burned on, which it is. These machines are readily available; do a search for them. You realize that a laser is a hot light run by a computer, it does not cut, it burns. Ok, etches. I question the use of laser engraving on "high grade" guns. Look at the base model Chapuis; that is laser "engraving".

I don't know about gun engraving but the machines are on display, and for sale, at the jewelry shows. I looked into them several years back. They started at around $30,000. I figured I would need about 50 years to make my money back on one, so that is as far as it went with me.

The Boxall and Edmiston range are entirely engraved at the Shropshire workshop using the most efficient elements of mechanical and hand engraving.

Over the past several years the machining techniques used to engrave the Boxall and Edmiston range have been developed with assistance from some of the worlds leading engravers. A deep understanding of engraving practices coupled with a knowledge of art, historical engraving trends and expertise in engineering have given the Boxall and Edmiston engraving team an edge in the ever developing techniques of gun engraving.

If a gun maker is not into computer aided design & manufacture, then one is behind the times and likely at a disadvantage in the market.

The custom gun trade accurately transfers/duplictes stock design-geometry with assistance from machines,
they manufacture the steel components via CAD/CAM-CNC,
Scope tubes,lenses and intricate parts inside are done CNC,...technology is everywhere, why not in the engraving process also?

http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/fe...dmiston-boxlock-9221

The B&E company is offering British made shotguns at prices much below the likes of Purdey or H&H.
Full coverage engraving is offered for about $US2000.

Peter Boxall being the former manufacturing director for Holland&Holland.
B&E utilise the same independent actioners and barrel-makers as used by the major London makers.


Lasers have been tremendously successful tools for manipulation of matter on small scales but only to a certain point.
Conventional laser machining relies on heating the material, with atoms ejected from the surface by the resulting explosive forces
and vaporisation. As a result, many atoms get caught up in the process making it impossible to achieve the resolution needed.
-Carbon atoms that comprise the lattice are sensitive to laser beam polarisation (that is, the direction of the light wave’s
beating movement) with respect to the direction of chemical bonds that hold material together.

With advances, a laser beam can now target specific atoms on the surface, causing their chemical bonds to break before there is any
significant dissipation of energy into the surrounding area...
i.e;-its possible for lasers to interact with pairs of atoms and cause their separation without disturbing the surroundings.

I bet a large proportion of the people that praise & wonder at the skill of hand engraving by a talented individual,
use the speed & convenience of a computer controlled auto focus/exposure camera... A purist would still be doing it all manually.

I do like the look of what I see on an image search.
The laser is very good at eroding the relief of the engraving and if the rest, acanthus scroll for example, were finished by hand it would make a very nice effect.
Of course, machines have made perfect circles and symmetry a reality but it is always more impressive when one knows that a beautifully engraved gun was done by hand.

One would think that small (and maybe large) U. S. gunmakers would start offering more engraving with the advent of these machines that can do a satisfactory job.

Smith and Wesson offers it now.

I saw a Ruger distributor exclusive SP101 that is currently on their website being offered with engraving.

http://ruger.com/products/sp101DE/models.html

It is the third model on the list.

The machine engraving on the examples shown is really quite good. Of course, the sideplated boxlock starts at about US$34,000, perhaps a bargain compared to Purdeys but certainly not a steal.

The greater price of the top guys compared to B&E is about right as they are very different products. I would not pay £36,000 (USD 58,000) for a B&E sidelock. Not a chance.

Lasers have been used to label and mark manufactured products for about 40 years.

The expiration date of many food and drug products is marked on the label with a laser.

However lazers do not engrave - they only mark.

They are good for logos, scales, witness marks, etc but I would never use a laser for decoration.

Trax you should skip copying and pasting about things you know nothing about.

We've gone through many years of roll engraving or a combination of mechanical and roll.Laser adds just one more variable. For my own guns Ill stick to my owntraditional engraving as amateur as it is .
My M1 90 Benelli was one of the first stocked with black re-enforced plastic .After numerous snide remarks about the gun from the engraved , gold inlayed double crowd I carved ducks and squirrels into my Benelli.I yield to no man !!

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

However lazers do not engrave - they only mark.

......

In your ignorance , you have confused laser engraving with laser marking.

Never heard of micro machining?

Laser engraving is a form of laser micro-milling.
Altering the number of pulses at each mark will control the depth/amount of material removed.

Concentrate the pulse and you have Laser drilling, as used on: diamonds, fuel injection parts,printer nozzles,medial instruments,
fibre optic connections etc,

How is it then not possible for a laser to engrave?

e.g.; One can only remove the laser inscription that is placed on the girdle of diamonds
by removing more diamond material, which means the numbers/letters were engraved into the diamond.

Owning several German firearms from the 1870's through 1936 and one British double rifle that are fully engraved and having looked at machine engraving I much prefer the real McCoy.

To be fair, I haven't looked at one in 3-4 years so it is entirely possible it has improved since the first ones I saw. However, it was obvious it was not done by hand from ten feet away.

quote:

Originally posted by Trax:

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

However lazers do not engrave - they only mark.

......

In your ignorance , you have confused laser engraving with laser marking.

Never heard of micro machining?

Laser engraving is a form of laser micro-milling.
Altering the number of pulses at each mark will control the depth/amount of material removed.

Concentrate the pulse and you have Laser drilling, as used on: diamonds, fuel injection parts,printer nozzles,medial instruments,
fibre optic connections etc,

How is it then not possible for a laser to engrave?

e.g.; One can only remove the laser inscription that is placed on the girdle of diamonds
by removing more diamond material, which means the numbers/letters were engraved into the diamond.

Sean Russell,
you have every right to remain as ignorant as sr4759, just don't expect others on AR to follow suite.

BTW, hows your bizarre act of 'perspiring real blood' while hunting, going for you?

Medical technology employs lasers to help remove dysfunctional brain tissue ,could well be of help to you & halfwit4759...

i would reply to the paki troll but since he is on Ignore I thankfully don't know what he posted

SR,
why is it you have nothing factual or educational to add about laser engraving?

quote:

Originally posted by Sean Russell:

i would reply to the paki troll but since he is on Ignore I thankfully don't know what he posted

You have Trax on 'ignore' but you still go to the effort to respond to my posts in one form or another,
....now thats really dumb, but strictly speaking I have sympathy for people that reach your level of stupidity.

However it is achieved, marking, removing metal or whatever, it does not have the same appearance and certainly not the same feel. To me, those that I have examined, just looked...I hate to say cheap but it is the word that comes to mind. Perhaps a less expensive option is better. What I have seen is not like real engraving at all. I suppose, as it advances, it can be quite appealing but I can't consider it engraving. Certainly not comparable to the real engraving on rifles, drillings and combination guns I have.

Engraving is an art which cannot be performed by a machine. If you like your food pumped out by a machine and your paintings printed off by an HP then you may accept this abomination.

I'm certain there's a place for machine and laser engraving on firearms. I just hope I'm never stuck in that place.

Not a fan of machine engraving, particularly on lower price shotguns. My preference would be minimal engraving and good bluing or case hardening. What looks really horrible are game scenes.

Perhaps there will come a day when the technology is so good that it will be next to impossible to distinguish the difference between machine engraving and person engraving.

I wonder if a lot of people were soured years ago when hand engraving gave way to machine engraving by hand - when the use of a machine took the place of a graver and a chasing hammer.

The role of the engraver should not be diminished. The art of engraving is in the design of the pattern. that still needs to be done by the engraver. The only thing different is how the metal is removed to reveal the engraver's design.

The engraving shown on the B&E looks pretty good to me, much better than machine produced engravings I've seen on other guns.

Kevin, the best and finest engraving is still done by hand. There are some things that machines can't duplicate and I hope it continues that way. I, for one, would hate to see artists replaced by a computer program.

quote:

Originally posted by Customstox:
Kevin, the best and finest engraving is still done by hand. There are some things that machines can't duplicate and I hope it continues that way. I, for one, would hate to see artists replaced by a computer program.

Kevin always has a way doesn't he?

I too prefer the look of manually done engraving.
I must wonder whether the laser might provide a transfer advantage of the basic artists rendering onto the metal, to be chased by the engraver's chisel.
When it comes to metal removal, I must also wonder if the use of water cutting can be implemented to remove material and thereby offer a method of quasi-engraving.