Engraver Sharpening Changes Architecture Of Point

Ok Have A Laugh. I Am An Infant In The World Of Engraving. I Realize From All My Reading And
Video Watching That Shapening Is Very Important. But I Am Confused. When You Cut A Heel On A Square Graver Ok, But When You Cut A Heel On A Onglette Or A Round Graver Haven't You Changed It's Architecture Into A Mini Square Graver? Also After Engraving I Still Have A Few
Little Point Or Burrs At The End Of Each Line, How Do I Repair Those Areas (other Than Not Doing It To Start With)?

you should shape your heel exactly the same shape as you want your graver to be, onglette shaped, or round or 90 or 110 or 120, the heel needs to be same shape. with a round or onglette you will have to do this by hand, since no fixture can duplicate this correctly

to avoid the horrors of the xtra work mentioned above by scott, i have simply heated and bent the graver shafts the required amount. this gives me the same effect without trying to grind and reshape the steel. trying to do this is a pain, at least for me. it's just so simple to bend the shaft for the degree i want. just be sure when bending, that the tool axis remains true. if it gets off axis, you're gonna get in trouble when you resharpen with a mechanical holder.you'll end up with a crooked face. i made a little water tank that holds the main graver body and keeps it immersed in water while i'm heating the rear with a torch and bending to the amount required. will supply a drawing of this if anyone wants. monk45@verizon.net

I use mostly round gravers in the making of my printing dies. I have never put a heel on my round gravers and I been engraving for several years. So it is possible to engrave with round gravers without a heel and just a 45 to 50 degree face on them.

Deland, What metal are you cutting with your round gravers? And what kind of printing dies are you making? Any pictures?

If you are cutting a soft metal, you may get away with no heel. But if you're driving the graver in harder metals, with either mechanical or hammer power, you'll want a heel to give you control of the depth of cut.

The face angle should also change with the hardness of metal.

From what little experience I have, I realized that I must be able to change my geometry to suit the type of metal I am cutting. I don't know all the tricks to this, but my eyes started to open when I took some lessons on sharpening and engraving. It makes the job at hand so much easier if the tool does exactly what you want it to do.

Doc: As we have discussed before, adjusting the tool to the job is important, but I will refer you to Frank Hendricks tapes which were very good in showing onglette sharpening, wide or narrow, for firearm engraving, or die cutting. Also, Monk has an excellent point. We older engravers had to shape and sharpen our tools without the new gizmos, and bending the shank of the tool was one of the means of getting hand clearance for the palm tool or chisel, particularly for jewelery engraving (script lettering and such). The final sharpening proceedure for the tool clearance was to strop the tool on 4 ought paper to produce the equivelent of the facets that you achieve with the modern systems (power hone). Frank Hendricks learned his proceedures from the European engravers. Going back to my first statement, this is a very tricky means of achieving a proper point, because you can create a wedge effect in the point which is detrimental to the success of the tool. Now, as for your statement about the mini square graver, you can sharpen this tool with your calibrated sharpening device and of course that statement would be true. You would simply be recreating the same geometry as the square. That is why we were so adament about personal factors and the point created with sharpening devices only being a starting point to get you cutting quickly with consistency. as for the onglette, there would be some advantage to the tool being narrower behind the facets, allowing the tool to make turns with less drag, better than the square, but only slightly so. Any advantage however is benificial. The tool that Frank used was very strong and durable, but then he was using the chisel by hand. The reciprocating tip of the pneumatic tools create a whole different approach and benifit the point by relieving itself every time it oscillates back and forth. Frank claimed that his point would withstand the harshest usage and endure the boldest cuts. Having said all of that, I have tried his method a few times and went back to my own style due to the fact that it was going to take some time to get it right and when you have something that works, don't fix it. The value of the strength in the tool is the thing that would make it worthwhile, because any minimization of tool breakeage would be an asset. .............I hope this helps clear up the confusion some........Ron S

Hope this picture works this is a typical sample of a embossing die I make.