Mad Science and Heavy Metal

August 25, 2012 5:43 PM

The Beauty of Engraving is the name of a site that Neenah Paper has devoted to the ancient practice of engraved printing, with a focus on its CRANE Papers line. Check out the video to see modern engraving in action. While the site's history of engraving and also of CRANE are interesting, the highlight is a gallery of user-submitted engraved work.
posted by netbros (6 comments total)

I use CRANE & CO resume paper for my resumes. It is 100% cotton. It breaks down to something like 40cents per resume after I had pared everything down, removed everything surpurflous and had it typeset. I might be doing it all wrong but I like to differentiate myself from other developes who hand me what seems like a sheaf of papers all to say "HTML,Php, CSS, c# 2.5, PDF, acrobat". I like to slide a single sheet of 22lb pearl white 100% cotton paper across the table that says simply "Ad hominem, Tedhnologist".

So far I have balked at having it engraved. I did have engraved business cards made for someone once, It broke down to something like over 1$ a card. At that cost I'll just wait till I can afford to have them hand done by a calligrapher.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:08 PM on August 25, 2012

Technologist.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:09 PM on August 25, 2012

*sigh of bliss

Love the sumptuous beauty of the samples on the gallery page.
posted by nickyskye at 7:53 PM on August 25, 2012

I didn't know Neenah had bought Crane. Glad that's how it worked out; I have always loved Crane products, and Neenah also impresses me with its quality and consistency.

Crane paper lives forever. My grandmother and great-aunt always used Crane once they came to the US, and I have letters of theirs from the 1920s that look crisp and full.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:36 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

What's weird is that he's dipping the photoresist into the sodium hydroxide with no gloves on, but then scrubbing it off in acetone with gloves on...

Cause lye is way more dangerous than nail polish remover.
posted by Chekhovian at 9:53 PM on August 25, 2012

I've been studying goldsmithing as a student and apprentice for many months with an emphasis on the technical aspect, mostly training to be a bench jeweler, which is a job that requires a number of different highly skilled techniques. Engraving is one of the skills you need to learn at least to a level of competence to consider yourself a goldsmith, mostly for stone setting but occasionally for decorative or ornamental work. However, most people who start out as bench jewelers end up specializing in a particular skill and refining it to a very high level, such as stone setting. In my case I'd like to specialize in engraving. A true master of metal engraving from Armenia lives here in San Francisco and has a studio just a few doors down from the school, but not sure if he'd be willing to take me on yet on a long-term basis. There aren't many like him around anymore, and it's ridiculously difficult to learn to do well, nevermind mastering, but it's just so damn amazing in form and function. Doing the work puts me in a very zen state, where you have to stay in utter relaxed laser focus. It's just bliss ... Anyway, not really into the printing aspect as much as just the engraving on metal as an end in itself, but hand engraving for the purposes of printing is done with the same tools and general techniques. We even made an engraving for printing in a recent class.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:13 PM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]