Newbie sharpening set up

bram ramon

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Bram, you made some good points. And you work and results make them credible. But I believe you went to school full time, and were taught how to do things, and was told when a graver had poor geometry, and how to correct it.

For someone trying to learn engraving on his own, the worst thing is trying to do it with a graver of poor geometry. He does not know if his poor results are because of his technique, tools, or graver geometry. He gets frustrated and gives up.

Using a template or a dual angle holding fixture eliminates that variable. At minimum it is a help to get started. And then later can try hand sharpening after he understands geometry, and how different angles affect graver behavior, if he so desires.

I hand sharpen after roughing out the graver using a Crocker fixture and power hone. Sometimes can do it faster than using a template or my Hamler fixture. But many times not. Hand sharpening for me is much faster if I am only resharpening the face when the graver gets dull or chipped. But still have to very very carefull I did not change the geometry.

Oke you are right

On my school we got a piece of paper with some sketches on heel of 10° face angle 45° That whas it the teacher sharpened one we looked how she did it. And we started sharpening our point if they did not cut we started over. Some still have problems sharpening the graver point but afther a time you create your one graver geometry. And that is the way how you start understanding graver geometry. Wen you use a template the template directs you what to do...
 

Red Green

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Bram,


I understand what you are saying Bram but it is just is not viable to build your own template system. While it can be done with far more work than you may think why bother? If you buy a GRS or Lindsay sharpening system you are not 'stuck' with it, well cared for used equipment sells quickly and you can expect your loss would be within reason. I think most new engravers are looking for a way to get the job of sharpening done, not make a career of graver sharpening or system building. If you want to engrave the answer is simple if you want to build equipment this is an opportunity to spend endless hours in the workshop.

As for hand sharpening offering any shape and being unlimited, what good does it do? Are all those shapes that are possible better than the shapes known to work, that have been proven to do the job for years? Why spend all the time and effort just to come to the same conclusion? I don't think the few seconds it takes to set up a jig and get the job done will ever be as much as the time spent doing it any other way, few will learn to hand sharpen or build a personal system in less time or at less cost in the end.

Bob
 

mrthe

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....and you can start sharpening with templates and after understand graver geometry and create your graver geometry too ;)
 

Kevin Scott

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When hand sharpening, I found it is very important to measure the angles. Your eye can be fooled very easily.

When resharpening the face I carefully check the angles to make sure I have not changed the geometry. If the graver had a 100 degree face width and now by sharpening the face only it is 95 or 105, I know I changed the face angle. I check the face angle on both sides to make sure it is symmetrical.

Pictured are the tools I have used. Started with the protractor. Works well, but takes time.

Then made the clear plastic gauge. Not as accurate as the protractor, but faster. Good idea, but worked poorly.

Then made white plastic gauge, thin piece of plastic. Picture shows checking graver face angle from heel. Works great. Fast, accurate, easy to use. Now can get consistent results hand sharpening.

I am not a real strong believer in hand sharpening. But there are some advantages. But until I came up with a system to carefully check angles, I could not easily duplicate a graver that worked well. Also could destroy a good graver's effectiveness by minor hand sharpening if I did not return it to the same exact angles.
 

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Peter E

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Bobby, I have the GRS Power Hone and the Dual Angle fixture. Quite a few people have and like the Lindsay templates for the simplicity and repeat ability.

I agree with Sam regarding the versatility of the Dual Angle fixture and once you have some experience and find you prefer a specific point, the Lindsay templates may be a good choice.

While the GRS Power hone works well, if I were purchasing a motorized hone right now, I would seriously consider Tom White's. It is similar to the Power Hone, but adds "variable speed" which speeds things up dramatically when grinding gravers that heat is not an issue.
 

JJ Roberts

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I sharpen my gravers by hand for years and the Power Hone & dual angle fixture is the best thing to ever come along,the only graver I sharpen by hand now is the onglette which I still engrave with.The Lindsay templates also work well with the power hone.J.J.
 
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tundratrekers@mtaonline.n

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Bram,
Don't waste your words.
Only wants to know what tools are needed,not sharpening advice.
If they want to learn to sharpen ,they will ask.
Americans are very "Right Now" types.
Not many want to actually learn something from the ground up,it just is foolishness to them.

If they have to have every gadget on the market,let them spend the $.

mike
 
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JJ Roberts

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Mike,For me it's not a hobby,I don't have the time to spend sharping gravers by hand any more.That what we had to do back in the day,but things have changed and for the good.In my class I teach the H&C and hand gravers but when it comes to sharping I want the student to leave knowing how to sharping there gravers properly weather they use power or go traditional. J.J.
 
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Red Green

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Wow Sam, Mike's statement reads very much as an opinion to me. I can't say I'm in great disagreement with him. I for one do not wish to spend a great deal of time learning archaic techniques that have been abandoned by most of the modern professionals I respect.

There must be a long list of forgotten and unused techniques abandoned by engravers through the centuries shouldn't we recover and practice them also? If the history is more important to you than getting the work done then you are an historian engraver, some of us are not that interested in living history, sorry. I prefer electric lights over candles and would leave any doctors office who wanted to bleed me with leeches for a head cold.

I think the point is to get repeatable geometry that works for you, however you get it the graver and object being engraved will not care if you spend a few seconds or hours and hours obtaining it.

Bob
 
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Sam

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The end result is really all that counts. It doesn't matter how the chips get on the floor or whether the graver is sharpened by eye or by fixture. I like my electric lights too, as well as my microscope. And I like my high tech graver steels and carbides and the diamond laps I use to shape them.
 

Kevin Scott

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Hey Mike, when you make a blanket statement like that I'd like to see the source of your data.

Sam

It has been my experience that in general, Mike is correct about Americans being "Right Now" types.

I have run across it many times in the last 20 years when trying to help people learn watch repair.
Their eyes glaze over when I talk about having proper screwdrivers, properly sharpened. When I answer a question about a involved repair procedure, they lose interest, and ask "what is the shortcut that real watchmakers use?"
They think books make operations far more complicated and harder than they need to be, just to discourage people from learning.
Measuring, and proper measuring tools, same thing. Refuse to learn basics, or buy basic quality tools.

Sam might have a different viewpoint because the people that come to him for lessons mostly understand learning engraving is not easy, and by taking the time, and spending significant money for lessons, they show they are not the "Right Now" types.

There seems to be a high drop out rate among people on the engraving forums trying to learn engraving. The "Right Now" attitude I think is one of the reasons.

But without modern sharpening tools like the GRS fixture, templates, and various power hones, the dropout rate I would bet would be much higher. And there would be far less excellent engravers out there.

All in all, if someone came to me about learning engraving, one of the things I would tell them is to get modern quality sharpening tools right from the start, and skip hand sharpening. And if later they want to learn and use hand sharpening, fine. If not, fine also.
 

Red Green

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Mike has a valid point, the old ways worked fine they just require a dedicated approach few but apprentices would endure. You must admit Kevin engraving has a charm that attracts many and it's much easier to want to engrave than to invest the money and time to do so. I think bringing as many people into and learning the basics and beginning engraving is great and I believe enough of the talented and dedicated that are left after the first cut will insure engraving will not just survive but continue to impress.

Bob
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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Kevin, this is 2012 already here in my place on earth. I'm engraving for about 3 years now, yes I will progress if I like that, but I will do it fast. All info on the way will help, but if I would have done it the old traditional way, I would still be cutting straight lines.

It is like playing music, when I was a kid I wanted to play the guitar, so my parents send me to "the after time school" there I had to practise reading music on paper in all 7 keys the first year. After that I would have spent 7 more years before starting to play an instrument.
So after one year I quit, bought me a guitar and started to play the guitar, just like that

arnaud
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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If one wants to graduate on watch repair, it probably takes 5 years at least at school. But when you have a good teacher, you do it in less than a year. One condition, forget the extra ballast. That will come when one need it

arnaud
 

Andrew Biggs

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If you sharpen by hand or a jig of some kind it is irrelevant. Neither group of people are advantaged or disadvantaged. It is also very dependent on the way you shape your gravers and the type of gravers you use.

A lot of world class stone setters and engravers still sharpen by hand, especially in Europe and Asia. It's not even a matter of being a "right now" person. It's more a matter of being practical.

In an environment of training institutions that offer 3 year courses or apprenticeships, you have the luxury of time. However, in the absence of those things and with a student paying to learn the basics in one week..........you simply cannot spend 5 days just trying to get them to sharpen a graver by hand. You have to remember that a lot of the people getting into engraving are hobbyists that do it for their own personal satisfaction. Very few morph into full time engravers. So why not have a jig that allows them to sharpen their tools and move forward. Does it actually matter??

Phil Coggan doesn't heel his gravers and simply sharpens by wiping the face across a stone and he's back in business. Job done. It's just an automatic thing with him. On the other hand I sharpen using a GRS dual angle fixture. Is Phil's work better than mine??...........absolutely it is!!!!. But it has nothing to do with how we sharpen the gravers. It's all about artistic ability, experience and a whole lot of other factors.

I've also had the privilege of attending international shows and demonstrating GRS tools. My experience is that quite a few (not all) from the hand sharpening school think their gravers are sharp but in reality are almost useless. They've just learnt to put up with them and work around them. The energy they expend trying to get them to cut is amazing to watch. By the time they have sharpened, fiddled around re sharpening and testing they could have done the job a lot better and efficiently with a dual angle fixture. One lady (and I've met a lot like her) had spent 12 months in a training institute learning stone setting and engraving. She was amazed at what a difference a sharp graver made to her work. After a years training she didn't know what a sharp graver was till I showed her................... There are a lot of myths around hand sharpening and those myths simply don't match the reality.

The one fact remains whether you sharpen by hand or using a jig. If the tool isn't sharp, then it won't cut properly and your work will suffer. No amount of wishful thinking will change that. I see no advantage sharpening by hand. However, if you are new to engraving and want sharp tools immediately, then buy a dual angle fixture, read the instructions and a you will have sharp gravers in a few minutes. That gets you over the first hump...............the rest is up to you. :)

Cheers
Andrew
 

mitch

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Hilarious!

i've read all the posts in this thread, and everything since your last post twice and can't find anything funny in any of them. who or what do you find so "hilarious!"?
 

Haraga.com

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I learned to hand sharpen on a stone. My preferred way now is to hand sharpen on a power hone then when the job is done I will true up the steel in a grs jig if it gets too far out of whack. That is what is most efficient for me. If I were starting today I would buy some form of jig.
In regards to a reference on the people's desire to have it now, I believe our debt ratio proves that we do not want to wait.
In regards to stone setting with single facet/angle gravers, it is a huge time advantage to just use the hand to achieve the proper angle instead of a jig. The secret when sharpening without a jig is to lock your wrist.
 
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mrthe

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this thread show a lot of interesting points of view and all have my respect, but i think that the important question is not what is the best but what is the easy way for people that are starting, i can understand that for start engraving you don't need much money and people say that with a norton stone and sharpening by hand you can do all the work, but for example when i'm start engraving the first 3 months was horribles because i was working with graver sharpened in wrong way, if you don't have for example the opportunity to take classes or go to a engraving school like me,maybe like say Arnaud me too " I would still be cutting straight lines " new tools , templates , fixtures etc. for a newbie save a lot of time, and is the more easy way to have a good sharpened gravers, that is the base of a good engraving i think
 
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