tools with diamond bits that spin really fast.
They’re good for carving wood but on metal it
catches and runs off. There’s no control. So I
kind of gave up. I didn’t know what to look for
or have the resources to find it. My wife and
I were traveling. We were in Charlotte, NC at
an NRA convention walking around. I’m look-
ing at firearms and stuff and I stumbled into
a booth. I see on the video that it looked like
someone was doing metal engraving on a fire-
arm. I’m standing there and I’m watching it. I
watching the monitor and not paying attention
to what’s in the booth. Little to my knowledge
the guy doing the engraving is right there be-
ing projected live onto the monitor. I stopped
and stayed longer, spending quite a bit of time
there.
I realized he was representing a school of engraving. I was like “Sign me
up! I’m coming to school!” I got all the information I needed there. It was
May and the class wasn’t until November. So from May to November I
had plenty of time to look up Google images and pick up ideas and look
at different references. I would read books and do drawing just to get my
hands and muscle memory geared toward the design. You could draw a
skull and it could look good but it could be wrong with the formula. Be-
cause I’ve been an artist all my life I’ve kind of progress a little bit faster
than someone who’s never done something like that or tried to engrave.
So that’s a new passion of mine.
How many artist do you have in your shop?
Right now I have four others and myself. I have one who does piercings. I
have one guy who’s full-time who does piercings. He’s been with me the
longest. Then I have my nephew Brian who I apprenticed and he’s a mer-
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