A pair of overlay medallions I created for my brother, Jeff, of our family’s brand used on the High Mesa Ranch in Alto, NM. Called the “Hip-Rafter ‘S'” brand, the design was reproduced by my nephew Shane in a scalable vector graphic format for other projects of his, but that format also allowed me to shrink it down to fit nicely within a 1/2″ circle.
The medallions are to be inset in a pair of grip panels on a Colt 1911. The craftsman making those panels recommended they be the same size as Colt’s medallions (1/2″), and Jeff suggested to also texture the backs for better adhesion to the epoxy used when inset into the grip panels.
The pierced overlay was cut from 16 ga. sterling sheet with a 6/0 saw blade, and when soldered onto a 20 ga. sterling sheet back, makes for a nice combined stack of about 12 ga. in thickness before the checkering on the back in done. After diamond-checkering the backs of the medallions with a cross-cut file to increase the surface area for better adhesion to the epoxy, the finished medallions came out to about 1.8 mm thick.
Being so small (and because checkering needs carefully repeated and aligned strokes to form the grooves), I set the medallion into shellac on a block, which is then held in a vise. After the filing is done, a little heat from the torch releases it, and a soak in denatured alcohol removes any remaining shellac. That’s also a good way to secure small stuff like earrings, making stone setting a LOT easier to do!
He later sent me a photograph of the 1911 with the grip panels mounted, and it looks just totally awesome. Oh, and the medallions inset in the grip panels look great, too. 😉