Re: New to engraving.
Bob,
Yes, I've got a lot of guns to work with. Lol. As for graver material, my current ground down masonry nails are plenty hard to practice on most US coinage while only needing to resharpen the face and heels every 2 hours or so (which is a lot). However, this material can't touch most any forms of steel. Hence putting money aside for cobalt or C-max blanks.
My handmade wooden templates are fairly good. Meaning, my 120 degree graver gives me a 120 degree angle 70% of the time. The other 30% it can vary by 1-3 degrees. I have been putting some money aside to get some of the Linsay templates and have already gotten the standard 116 degree graver template along with the 4 diamond hones. I di have to recut my current gravers down to 3/32" so that the universal arbor would accept them but once that was done..... Wow! What a difference. Steve's templates a the bees knees.
As for scroll work, there are just so darn many. Scroll work is tough because there are not an infinite number of ways to draw an acanthus leaf. But the way you put them together and fill the space you need to cover is where the artistry comes into play. But to answer your question, I love Lindsay and Alfano but I mostly look at very old books that were written before these guys were born. I would much rather study the basics of the scroll forms and build my own style from there.
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