My sweet engraveable you
That’s probably what Jay del Fierro, who goes by the handle “Jay the Engraver” online, hums whenever he sees a gun, a knife, a lighter, a pen, or pretty much anything with a smooth metal side or surface.
There aren’t too many other people in this country who can do what he does, to the degree of skill and dedication that he has. I met Jay in an online forum a year ago, when he offered his services to anyone brave enough to entrust their pens to him. I had a 40-year-old Sheaffer Targa in stainless steel that I thought I could sacrifice to the gravure gods, just to see what this Jay the Engraver could do.
We met up in a mall down South — he had come all the way from Bicol, where he hails from and is now based — and I was pleased to see a modest, middle-aged man who was clearly imbued with an uncommon passion. It’s a spark I’ve seen in other excellent craftsmen (see my column-piece a few weeks ago on “The Master of Commandante Street,” Gerald Cha, who repairs and restores vintage typewriters in his shop in downtown Quiapo), the likes of whom I’m always glad to meet and to draw some well-deserved attention to. (Note to self: do writeups on book and paper restorers Loreto Apilado and Josephine Francisco, and fountain pen nibmeisters JP Reinoso and John Raymond Lim.)
I turned over the Sheaffer to him, and we worked out my preferred design — I asked for bamboo stalks and leaves, for a distinctly Asian appeal — and about a month later, I received the finished work with much delight.
Our connection went beyond that job, because Jay knew that I, too, did a kind of engraving a long time ago, when I was active as a printmaker with the Printmakers Association of the Philippines. The PAP had a studio and workshop on Jorge Bocobo Street in Ermita, and in the early 1970s, I learned and practiced printmaking there, which became an important source of income for me then, fresh out of martial-law prison. (Not incidentally, that’s where I met my wife-to-be Beng.)
Jay demonstrates his technique, assisted by his daughter Ella.
I was practicing mainly two kinds of printmaking: etching and drypoint. Etching involves the use of acid to cut lines into the metal to produce the design, while drypoint comes closer to engraving, with the artist employing a pointed tool or burin to scratch out fine lines directly on the plate. With engraving, the artist uses an even sharper and harder graver to cut deep grooves into the metal. For a printmaker, these grooves serve merely to hold ink to transfer onto paper, but for an engraver, the patterns he or she cuts into the metal could be the artwork itself—unless, of course, one is engraving plates for banknotes, or for art prints such as those produced by the German master Albrecht Durer (1471-1528). Indeed, for centuries, engravers did by hand what photographers and graphic designers would do in the 20th century for practically anything in print: illustrations, maps, social cards.
The skill requires a clear eye, a steady hand, loads of energy and persistence, and the right tools. And the medium is unforgiving; if your hand slips, not only could you cut yourself badly, but a mistake on metal won’t be that easy to mend. (Today, automation has taken over much of the menial labor, with computers and printers doing the cutting, but some traditionalist holdouts still do things entirely by hand.)
Which leads one to ask, why would anyone — especially in this digital age — want to undertake anything so arduously analog? Jay studied mechanical engineering, and worked at his profession for a few years after graduation. He seemed to be on track to succeed at what he had signed up for, landing jobs with leading companies. But something was missing, and Jay realized what he was when he chanced upon an engraver at work on YouTube. “I’d always liked to draw,” he says, “and Fine Arts would have been my second choice in college.” He felt drawn to engraving like a moth to a flame, and soon he was watching as many instructional videos as he could, and trying out what he saw.
He soon became an entirely self-taught engraver, and began taking on jobs from clients looking for a more personalized flourish on their “everyday carries” or EDCs and their trophies. For some clients, those trophies could include fearsome .45s (there’s a huge market for firearms engraving in America — not surprising given their gun culture — and “master engraver” titles are bestowed by the industry for gunwork). For others, Zippo lighters, knives, and even spoons could fit the bill. “The most challenging job I’ve done so far,” Jay says, “is a Series 80 Colt .45, featuring English scrolls with arabesque relief on bead-blasted areas. Mind you, I insist that every gun I work on has to have full legal papers.”
Preferring pens to pistols, I show Jay a 1970s Sheaffer with a machine-pressed grapes-and-vines motif that I’ve admired for the past 30 years. “I can do that,” he tells me, and I believe him. (You can get in touch with Jay directly at jay.engraver@gmail.com.)
* * *
Email me at jose@dalisay.ph and visit my blog at www.penmanila.ph.
