Stumbled across I design that I liked, and thought it needed to go on the side of an AR receiver. The raven/Nevermore thing came from a joke at work, and has stuck around for longer than it should have (especially since it’s not nearly as dark or depressing as Poe’s poem). Anyway, here is the image I found.
I though to myself, “Cool, even has the word my damn coworker keeps saying.” I get in touch with Vic at Tats2 T’s (the original artist of the image), and get the go-ahead for my using the image for an engraving, on the condition that I send back a couple pictures of the finished product. Cool. I made a black & white version, and shopped around for someone who could do an image that wasn’t simply a line-drawing cut into metal.
Through Google, I found Harford Engraving Service, and hit 'em up with an email. These folks are a full-service engraving shop, everything from custom logos to NFA-compliant engravings for SBRs and all that other Title II goodness. Jim replied pretty quickly, and we exchanged several more emails discussing the type of work he does and what can be done with my image. He came up with these samples:
The first style is a higher resolution engraving that cannot be painted. The second type of cut is slightly lower resolution, which would make the letters of the image slightly grainy, but can be painted (another service they provide). Jim had “bad news” for me when he said that the skull was a very fine detail that might not show up all that well in the final product. Which confused me before I actually looked at the picture and found, lo and behold, a skull within the raven. Since I didn’t notice it originally, and didn’t much care, I said scrap it. I liked the look of the first one more and decided to go with the higher quality image.
For this project, I decided to use the CD Defense receiver I got when Mr. Kassnar was selling the preproduction lowers here a while back. It’s the finest of the three receivers I had, aesthetically, and was already stripped. From the day of packaging to the day it’s back in my hands, the total turn-around time was one week. Not damn bad at all.
The result?
Jim was great to work with. Since I plan to delve into the NFA weapons bit, and because I know that I’ll need at least one more logo engraved on an AR lower, I’ve got a good idea of who I’ll be using for both services.
-B
