Way up in the frozen Great White North of the wilds of Alberta is one of Canada's many hidden treasures. Heather New of New-Line Engraving is no stranger to living and working under extreme conditions and deadlines. Starting off her career as a hand engraver in the early 1980s, Heather first worked in Edmonton, Alberta in a small shop where she was responsible for handling the engraving for over 100 local jewelry stores. Heather met and was taken under the wing of Canada's Master Hand Engraver, Frank Gurney. Under Alberta's Apprenticeship Program, Heather studied under Mr. Gurney for a years, and he was kind enough to teach Heather the patience and skills he had acquired over decades of hand-tooling.
Heather then relocated to near Calgary, Alberta, and began working for a gigantic jewelry manufacturing company where she worked on Stanley Cup Rings including the one worn by Wayne Gretsky and even some rings for Bill Clinton's secret service!!! Heather was responsible for all the engraving there, and also moved on to operating CNC machines and hand-carving molds used in casting. There she also became a programmer, writing the programs, which would later be used by CNC machines to cut the actual molds.
As a mother of three young sons, times were hard back then. She spent many long nights working her fingers to the bone trying to bolster her family income. She approached local Harley Dealerships, trying to expand her work engraving parts, but was met with laughter. “Sure little girl, come back when you grow up,” was one of the comments she remembers.
Heather started New-Line Engraving in the summer of 2005. She had hand-carved an inspection cover for her good buddy “Chicken” and decided to branch out into custom bike carving. She started schmoozing at some of the local bike shows and swap meets and got a job engraving some points covers for After Dark Cycles in Edmonton. They sent the link to her website to Cycleboyz, in Brandon, Manitoba. From that contact Heather ended up engraving several pieces on their winning bike in the Canadian Championship of Custom Bike Building which was subsequently photographed by yours truly.
The media coverage led to Heather being contacted by a few private collectors and she has subsequently mastered several pieces on Billy Lane's Discovery Channel bikes, “Shit Outta Luck”, and “Down and Dirty.” She also engraved a piece on the Indian Larry Legacy tribute bike “Love Zombie.” The collector, Konstantine Zakzanis, of Ontario, Canada has recently acquired Jesse James “Grindhouse” bike from the Quentin Tarrantino movie and assures Heather that she will perform her craft on that bike shortly.
Having had the pleasure of meeting Ms. New in the flesh at the recent Canadian Championship of Custom Bike Building and having seen her work first hand, I can tell you all that this lady has talent, class and style but lacks the ego and attitude that many master craftsmen flaunt. A tireless worker, her talent speaks for itself. She completes the work in a timely manner and her prices are fair. Truly a rare combination in this day and age.
If you're looking to add that special touch on your next build, you won't go wrong by checking out Heather's work at: http://www.new-lineengraving.com/
Email – heather@new-lineengraving.com
Telephone – (403) 945-3339
Store Address – Unit 5, 805 East Lake Blvd Ne. Airdrie, AB T4A 2G4
And tell her TBear sent ya.
