While a lot of his artist friends focused on painting, Steve was looking for something different, and he found it at a car show in Boston; when he saw J.T. Spy engraving cars, his interest was piqued and he was hooked. J.T. showed him some basic techniques, but Steve went on to figure most of the art out for himself. He describes it as “…a question of feel for what you’re working on, the surface, how to hold or grasp the tool.” Steve also went on to develop his own equipment, which includes custom ground tips that allow for better precision detail and control.

The process of engraving a car starts with picking out a design; the options at Engraving by Schlos are endless. Not only does Steve stock about 80,000 different patterns, he can also work with original artwork customers bring in to the shop. Some customers even bring in a design on a rather unique canvas ~ their own bodies! They ask Steve to copy a tattoo they have, and he admitted to me that some of the tattoos are pretty strange ~ and their locations can be even stranger! But don’t worry, if you don’t have a specific design in mind, Steve will create something unique and breathtaking for you. He just finished working on a “…back window of a [Dodge] Viper that had a sexy female with a viper snake wrapped around her, she’s holding its head like it’s about to bite her neck.” The type of design people get varies a lot depending on what kind of car they have; the look for a muscle car is a bit different then what they’d choose for a classic or a cruiser.

Steve does all the work at Engraving by Schlos himself and generally has about 8-12 projects going at one time. (When people mail him things to work on, he generally gets it back to them in about a week. But if you catch him at a car show ~ like at the Summer Nationals in Worcester this July ~ he can even work while you wait.) Once a design is decided upon, Steve applies it behind the glass and then engraves the hard lines of the design. At this point there is no room for error, so when asked how he can fix a mistake while engraving, he quickly responds, “I don’t make them!” The next step is sandblasting, Steve uses a dental sandblaster that allows him the same pinpoint precision as an airbrush. Last, he adds color using acrylic watercolors.

One of Steve’s favorite things about the job? The people he gets to meet. He also likes that “Everything I do is candy…you don’t need it to survive, it’s all for personal enjoyment.” The most challenging part, though, is “…getting the customers to visualize what I have in my head. People ask me for ideas and I go from mild to crazy in my head. Then I have to explain it to them before I do any work so we’re on the same page. That becomes challenging. They have to trust in you for it to work.”

Steve also does custom paint jobs and is known for his trademark flames. So if you are looking for a way to trick out your whip with engraving or some head-turning color, check out www.schlos.com.