I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it interesting to learn about the procedures used by craftsmen in the various trades. I am starting a project that includes a bit of gold border. I thought I would photograph the process in different phases of the operation.

I am installing a gold oval to contain an animal bust on the side of the action. Rather than have just a simple gold border I have decided to enclose the gold border inside of a double border.

First off, I lay out all of the borders and cut the outside edge of the gold border with a 90 degree v cutter. The I cut the groove with a graver I have ground to size regarding the width of the gold line.



After I have the groove for the gold completely cut, I layout the outside double borders with a pair of dividers and then cut the outside borders. Then I cut a dovetail into each side of the groove to contain the gold inside of the groove during handling and firing of the gun. The dovetails are cut with a thin tool I have specially ground for this procedure.



Now that the groove is dovetailed I hammer the gold wire into the groove. I buy the gold in the form of Maple Leaf Canadian coin. It is the purist form at 99.99% pure. I make the wire myself by pulling it through a draw plate to whatever size I will need.

I use a punch that I have textured so the gold wire won't squirt out of the groove while I hammer it in place.



From here I trim off the excess gold protruding above the surface of the metal. I use a flat bottomed push graver that I have slightly domed so as to not dig the corners of the graver into the gunmetal.



Lastly, I will flush off the rest of the gold by polishing with stones and sand paper to whatever level of polish is appropriate to the job.

Beautiful. If you recycle I can process all that gold waste for ya. Of equal interest was drawing the coin. How's that done?

I start by taking the coin and rolling it flat in a rolling mill. I roll it to about .025 in thickness. I cut it in half and use the flat for animal inlays.

I take the other half and melt it into a little nugget about the size of a marble. I run that through the grooved side of the mill annealing between each time I roll it smaller. The grooves in my mill are sort of a round cornered square. The smallest groove in my mill correspondes with the largerst diameter hole in my draw plate. This pulls the square wire into round wire and reduces the size of the wire a couple of thousandths with each progression of the wire through the different sized holes. I think the smallest hole in my draw plate is .010.

The amount of time, effort and commitment to produce that level of artisanship never ceases to amaze me. Hats off to you.

Roger

Thank you for taking the time to show how you inlay gold.
Your workmanship is excellent as always. Do you inlay silver the same way?

James