by

Ralph H. Houghton

March 2004

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TABLE OF CONTENTS BOCA RATON - AEROMARK CORPORATION........................................................... 3

Introduction..................................................................................................................... 3 EARLY MILITARY WORK ............................................................................................. 5

McCoy AFB, Orlando, Florida ....................................................................................... 5 Engraving in Thailand..................................................................................................... 6 Lapidary Work ................................................................................................................ 9 Homestead AFB, Florida .............................................................................................. 10

TAMPA - CUSTOM DESIGN ENGRAVING ................................................................ 11 Introduction................................................................................................................... 11 Example Finished Templates........................................................................................ 11 Brown’s Trophies.......................................................................................................... 12 Profiled Badges............................................................................................................. 15 Proof Tracings............................................................................................................... 16 Classic Template Design Concept ................................................................................ 18 Decorative Design Templates ....................................................................................... 20 Military Projects............................................................................................................ 21

MacDill AFB ............................................................................................................ 21 Special Military Work............................................................................................... 22

Other Work Samples..................................................................................................... 24 University of Tampa ..................................................................................................... 25 Custom Work for Family .............................................................................................. 26 A Ralph P. Houghton Project........................................................................................ 27

GERMANY – USAF ........................................................................................................ 28 Introduction................................................................................................................... 28 Crystal Engraving ......................................................................................................... 29 OUI – Amway in Germany........................................................................................... 29 Various Squadrons ........................................................................................................ 30

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BOCA RATON - AEROMARK CORPORATION

INTRODUCTION My initiation into the wonderful world of engraving took place in the family owned Aeromark Corporation located in Boca Raton, Florida. I have few photographs of finished work here as most proofs were attached to paper work-orders and I did not have a suitable camera with me while working. I started a four year apprenticeship in industrial tool and die engraving in October 1962. Aeromark was a family owned and operated marking devices business. I studied engraving largely under my uncle, George L. Houghton. I was also fortunate enough to have spent six months working for my grandfather, Ralph H. Houghton (also) and learned to deal with inaccurate machinery to produce accurate results.

Some industrial engraving work from Aeromark in Florida.

My trademarks – one is less than ½ inch wide and the other one is about an inch. I made these from scratch, completely, heat treated and all.

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Made in Boca Raton at Aeromark – my masterpiece. This is the Houghton family coat of arms for Sir Thomas Houghton, baron and owner of Houghton Tower in Preston, UK. This was done from the original hand engraved pattern. While I was in Tampa, I made a template from a pattern about 12 inches high. I use this template for all further work for the family.

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EARLY MILITARY WORK

MCCOY AFB, ORLANDO, FLORIDA The work here began as a request to engrave the wing’s emblem on a special presentation plaque. It was a Recreation Services request. They had a New Hermes engraving machine, but had no one with hand engraving skills to create the pattern to do the emblem. Additionally, the emblem was to be painted in color. This was not something I was trained for, but completed anyway.

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ENGRAVING IN THAILAND This consisted largely of doing tiny charm engraving. I started this after a small New Hermes model GM was shipped over by my grandfather. I was the only one with one of these and the skills to create something besides lettering from the brass type. I hand cut all original patterns including the circular layouts by hand.

These are from a plate engraved with images hand cut in Thailand. Some were for very tiny gold charms. The pattern lettering for Serenity Prayer below was hand cut at about ¼ inch high and subsequently engraved by machine on a charm about ¾ of an inch in diameter. The Merry Christmas project was about the same size for the pattern, but the charm was hollow in the center – was only a ring - was a fun project.

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This was engraved on the watchband of a school teacher friend of mine from Korat.

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This was a small New Hermes Model GM I bought from Don McAuliffe in Albion Michigan – summer of 1967. My grandfather packaged it up and they shipped it to me in Thailand. Was the only one around who had one and I was also a frequent visitor to the Lapidary Hobby Shop where I got my feet wet making gemstones and other lapidary work.

LAPIDARY WORK I got a real taste for lapidary work while I was in Thailand from the experiences I gained at the base lapidary hobby shop. It was a very relaxing hobby.

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HOMESTEAD AFB, FLORIDA Most of my work at Homestead AFB consisted of templates for Halpert’s Trophies in downtown Miami and work for various squadrons around the base. Very few pictures were taken during this time as I did not have a reliable camera to work with. This plate is actually a nice emerald green.

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TAMPA - CUSTOM DESIGN ENGRAVING

INTRODUCTION This was a formal sole proprietor business set up in Tampa Florida to perform engraving machine template production. This was located at several different businesses and was finally located at a small shop just outside MacDill AFB. The first location was at Sydney O. Beck’s commercial embroidery operation, also just outside the base. It was here, I rented use of Mr. Beck’s Alexander 2D engraving machine to make the templates. I eventually purchased this machine and it became the core of CDE production.

EXAMPLE FINISHED TEMPLATES These are images of finished machine cut templates, engraved on 1/8 inch thick pieces of Plexiglas.

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BROWN’S TROPHIES I did a significant amount of template work for Brown’s Trophies on Gandy Blvd. Mr’s Beck and Brown were competitors and it was a constant fight to keep independent. It eventually leads to my establishing my own shop across the street from Mr. Beck’s place.

This advertising copy was created using one of my templates as the centerpiece. It is an all sports topical emblem with victory as it’s center. The “artwork” was done by engraving the image on a piece of white plastic sign stock with a black center core.

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This was one of the template concepts I came up with which was to earn me the enmity of Tropar Supply Co. They had a solid line of medallions which trophy and plaque businesses used to dress their awards. The Tropar concept had clean cut medallions, but the small shops were forced to purchase large amounts of them in 3 different sizes and colors (gold, bronze, and silver). This meant a large inventory at the end of the year which was subject to inventory tax. My concept was to create a 5” template with the most commonly used of the Tropar images in the form which allowed small shops to use any size or color of metallic or plastic disc within the ranges of their engraving machines. The templates were fitted with a double ring, which served double duty as shown in the theatrical emblem above, but also by using the outer ring, the inner pattern could be cut followed by setting the cutter to cut completely through the plastic stock, creating a cutout with its own border. These catalog pages from a 1974 vintage trophy catalog show the scope of these designs. See the additional section below for more information on how these templates may be used.

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I probably have 50-60% of these images already cut.

The following are sample finished pieces created from 1973 to 1977.

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PROFILED BADGES Not many engravers did profiled badges. These were usually specialty work relegated to the larger engraving shops where skilled hand engravers were available to quickly hand cut the necessary. The objects shown on this display board were cut on a simple New Hermes ILK II Gravograph with freshly sharpened cutters. The master patterns for these had an outer line for the purpose of cutting through badge stock. Observe the cartoon character in the upper left corner. One has no name plate below it, the other has. Both were created from the same template.

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PROOF TRACINGS The images here reflect the tracings done to prove the templates I finished actually worked. I used this trace to make sure all of the tracks on a template worked well on the New Hermes engraving machines they were sold for. There are images of one time templates which were only sold to one customer, largely for local companies and businesses that contracted for engraving services. The first one in the series was added in late 1976. The term “master” was applied by those I created templates for. Before the laser engraving equipment took over the larger engraving shops, there was a large demand for these at reasonable prices.

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Business and local logos were cut over 3 years of operations.

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Some of these templates were exceptionally detailed.

CLASSIC TEMPLATE DESIGN CONCEPT This is the lead plate in my introduction of the ideas involved with using templates instead of medallions to support trophy and plaque shops where having a large inventory of medallions is prohibitive.

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The shuffleboard emblem shows the possibility of customizing by adding a double set of rings and including text giving the names and location of individual organizations. The gavel template shows the range of sizes from one template.

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DECORATIVE DESIGN TEMPLATES These templates were designed to create a rich looking finished product. This provides a marketing edge for those engravers who invest in them and create their advertising to take advantage of it.

New Hermes and others marketing templates, often would charge $18 for each special decorative like the ones shown together in the lower left quarter of this image. (Yes, I make mistakes too – but I didn’t sell those!)

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MILITARY PROJECTS These images were traced as record copies from many of the various military templates I created while in the US Air Force. They served needs for which there were no other sources or templates anywhere in the market. I will add further tracings as time permits.

MacDill AFB TSgt Thomas R. Austin and I worked in the Fabrication Branch at MacDill AFB. We often teamed up to make very special presentation pieces. Tom fashioned the individual pieces of Plexiglas for them from scraps. Some of the pieces shown below also had aluminum aircraft which Tom also fashioned from scrap. He was a Native American and dyslexic. Together, we turned out eye stopping work. The largest of these was a gift from the wing to the TAC NCO Academy at Bergstrom TX. It had to be specially shipped there. It consisted (like this one) of the wing emblems for both the flying squadrons as well as the maintenance squadrons. It differed in that it held the old AND new wing emblems – the wing had just changed.

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This rifle was owned by Tom Austin. It was a .45 Marlin saddle rifle. Tom said he didn’t care what it looked like, he wanted a Rocky Mountain cougar on the side of this firearm and he wanted me to do it. He gave me a picture of a silver commemorative ingot with the design he wanted. I did a 24 carat gold fill – not inlaid. The lines were cut with an Alexander engraving machine with the receiver still case hardened. I used a very fine carbide cutter under oil. Cutter broke four times before I finished it. I used a GRS engravers block to hold the entire rifle while working on it. It was a fun job.

Special Military Work At every military post I held except for Tyndall AFB, I was often approached by units on base for special awards – they were often like these – specially done from non-standard materials.

Specials for the Security Police

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The examples below were created for units in the maintenance complex as going away gifts. Some Tom assisted with, others I did alone.

I often did free name badges for AF people who had lost or broken theirs. The Services Squadron at McCoy AFB had given me several boxes of the blanks because they had nobody to staff the engraving machine – only had a couple left when I sold out my equipment.

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OTHER WORK SAMPLES

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UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA Though this is not engraving, it is an example of some really neat work from my Industrial Arts Education degree program at the University of Tampa.

Always had a sense of humor – even made a rubber stamp out of this one. I did a lot of template work for a biker group in Tampa which shall remain nameless. Much of this was rather raw for the genteel of mind and will not be shown here. It was amazing what they wanted carved into their chrome gas caps. I sold my tiny New Hermes Model GM (the one from Thailand) to them along with a set of their favorite patterns.

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CUSTOM WORK FOR FAMILY I often had opportunity to do work for the family. These pieces were cut while I was in Tampa. The top one was from a set of salt and pepper shakers I brought back from Thailand – they were Christmas gifts one year.

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A RALPH P. HOUGHTON PROJECT These photographs are of one of the pen sets dad asked me to do for Christmas one year. He wanted to have signatures made for the key officers in his corporation and engraved into 1” thick blocks of Plexiglas – in reverse so they would show up as raised when mounted in walnut bases. His woodwork was so precise, you could not tell how the blocks were held in place. Essentially, he did the fitting in a room with little humidity. When they were given, the Florida humidity swelled the wood in such a way the walnut expanded and held the blocks in place without glue.

Look carefully in the lower left image. You may be able to see where the wood expanded to hold the blocks. There is no glue holding the Plexiglas blocks in place.

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GERMANY – USAF

INTRODUCTION The work in Germany was initially evenly split between paying work to support the cost of materials and supplies for the incentive award work I did free of charge. Unfortunately, the work was highly prized and there was a concerted effort to convert the paying work to free work. Therefore, shortly before I returned to the USA, I sold every bit of my equipment except for the master patterns, hand tools, and crystal engraving equipment to one of the key people who fostered the turn towards free work. I believe he found out what it meant – he had the skills to do the work, but had no idea how much time I put into it.

More going away gifts – the big nut ashtray was made from scrap aluminum from a worn out wing spar. I made the individual face pieces to match the machining. The pewter plates were a major source of income – I did 32 of them in all.

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CRYSTAL ENGRAVING This was a fascinating part of my travels in Germany. I had met a young Frenchman through a mutual friend. Hubert Leherner was from a village in the Alsace which had many families of crystal cutters – good ones too. Hubert had no interest in cutting, bowever he was also good at that too. He was an engraver. Through him I met a gentleman from Poland who I only knew as Piotre. Hubert has hired Piotre from Poland to teach him how to do portrait engraving in crystal. Piotre was considered a national art treasure in Poland. Before I left Germany, Piotre brought out two copper wheel crystal lathes from Poland. I bought one of them and my friend’s daughter bought the other one.

Hubert made this block of crystal – a 1” square piece – which I promptly engraved with the hands of friendship and then signed it. If you look under the emblem, you will see the signature. I used my own standard engraving equipment to do the finished work.

OUI – AMWAY IN GERMANY This emblem was done from existing patterns for a sales manager for the German Amway dealership. They used the base badge to mount a name shingle and a sales award shingle under that. This did well for about 4 years. In a final order, over $500 worth of badges were precut and delivered. I never received payment from them for this work – another contributor to my decision to purge my equipment.

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VARIOUS SQUADRONS Many other units on the airbase knew of my work and gave me a lot of work. The one on the left – a going away gift - is an example of the paid work, the one on the right an example of the free work I did to support the incentive awards programs in those units.

Most of these template designs had an outer line cut a little over a ¼ inch from the inner border lines. These usually served as a way to cut through the 1/16” thick plastic after the inner work was cut and create a profiled piece. These were then assembled on different kinds of backgrounds to create wildly different finished appearances.