According to Daryl Hallquist the sideplates on the early guns are etched, they are definetely not engraved in the same manner that the scroll is on the rest of the gun. My dad was an tech at Hewlett Packard in the 70s and said they made very small circuit boards by using etching and he tried to explain that it wouldnt be a big deal to etch a very detailed picture pattern on metal using photo techniques. I didnt really grasp the method though.
Ross,
At about that time I was working my way through college. I worked several summers for Motorola making printed circuit boards for their Quasar televisions. We also produced circuit boards for government contracts. It is very a simple process. A negative image is made on a silk screen. An etch resistant ink is forced through the screen onto the part. The part is dipped into an acid bath and then the ink is removed. I know there was an earlier process that used parafin for acid etching as well.
An acid etched part would have a consistant depth to the "engraving" as there is no way to control that in the process. A hand engraver will vary the depth for artistic purposes.
Pete
