John and I have been discussing engravers and how long it takes. This was done this morning while I was reading emails, drinking coffee and and scanning photos and stuff.So, I guess about 3 hours of actual work. It is one and nine sixteenth inches tall.

Barry Lee Hands
12/2/2005 3:29:24 PM

Now I have done the same on the other sides and am cutting the border, when I realize I use a simple method to layout repetitive borders that someone may be interested in. Anyone can eyeball half way. So first I make a mark in the middle, cutting the border into two sections. Then I do the same in each section, cuting it into four sections. On this one I then subdivided each quarter into three, ending up with twelve sections eyeballed, which you can see marked in pen, and the cuts being started to make the border of arches. For years I used to use various measuring techniques to do this, which all took a lot of time and tools, this takes less than a minute with only a pen or pencil.

Barry Lee Hands
12/3/2005 12:12:28 AM

Then I just added some cuts till it looked pretty good. Could it be done better? of course. But in the hand it looks quite respectable. This is what I call 90% work, it can be done at a reasonable price in a timely fashion. 100% work is what we all like to do, but that last 10% really kills you.

Barry Lee Hands
12/3/2005 12:57:08 PM

Very nice Barry. Stan McFarland puts it this way "...the last 10% of the quality takes 90% of the time". You make really nice smooth cuts by the way. S

Sam Welch
12/3/2005 2:30:57 PM

The rest of it...

Barry Lee Hands
12/4/2005 8:10:07 PM

Thanks Sam, I learned quite a bit about cutting clean by quizzing Mike Dubber at the FEGA ACGG show in Reno over the years, and more recently in Emporia while we were classmates at the Ronnie/Winnie seminars. Mike as you know cuts really clean and can express a lot with very few cuts. And of course he is a class act all the way around. I hope some of it rubbed off on me, hehe

Barry Lee Hands
12/6/2005 12:25:57 PM