2 handmade Art Deco replica escutcheons

[Huw Eastwood]

Thought I'd show these as it's something a bit different. I can't ever remember making escutcheons from steel sheet before, so when a customer bought this one along I had to give it a go.

The original is from a prized item of furniture back in France which was missing two of them. They'd tried all the usual antiques centres and salvage specialists etc, both over here and France, and come up with nothing.

On inspection it was clear to me it'd been machine pressed to form the shape. Not easy without the original dies to press it, so it was going to be a challenge to replicate by hand, but that's my specialty so I had to give it a go!

Here's the original


And a lot of fiddling later I came up with these 2

The original also has a very fine and dulled nickel plating, with some minor surface corrosion and patina from age. That bit had me stumped for a while, but a bit more fiddling with the chemicals and it worked out far better than I'd planned. They were collected today by one very happy customer and they're off to France to be fitted back in place- I really enjoyed making them.

[Warren63]

Excellent job. You can tell you enjoyed by the quality of your work. The patination is class, I just wouldnt know where to start. We could have done with you at at the last house we bought. Two out of ten escutcheons didn't match and as a result of them being unobtainable at the reclaimation dealers we had to buy new escutcheons and handles for ten doors and they just didn't look a patch on the originals either because they just stood out ,if you know what I mean. unlike your craftsmanship, well done.

[Huw Eastwood]

Thanks again for all your compliments Mark- the finish and patination definitely worked out a lot better than I'd hoped for, but was probably more luck than anything else!