My homemade stuff

Hello, everyboddy! At first, allow me to intruduce myself. I am a 18 year old knifemaker from Norway, and lately I have taken up engraving with the purpose of decorating my knives. I'll maby post some pictures of my work later, bot today I wanted to share some of my homemade toys with you, so here we go.

I guess I always did enjoy making things myself, and now I have discovered that I truly enjoy making my own tools. I take pride in using tools that I made myself, and of course, making tools yourselves is often a prosess that's kinder on funds than just buying them.

The first thing I want to show you is my graver. I only push-engrave, beeing as I was advised to learn that technique before I try air-assisted, it is also a queston of price, of course.

The handle is turned out of birch, and the burs are screwd into pieces of a brass rod with a set-screw. At the tip of the brass-pieces i have made a 120 degree angle to fit it in my dual angle shapening fixture (If you are new to engraving, do buy one of those. Tried to make one, did not end well.) The burs can easely be taken out of the handle and plased in the fixture to be resharpent, or to be replased by another bur.

The second treat I got today is my homemade sharper. For a while I used stones, and recently I have used disks fitted in my drill press. However, a few days ago I grew tierd and desited to make my own sharper. I made the system by taking an inexpensive drill and fitted it in a plank in a way that ensured that the chuck runs evenly compared to the plank. Then I fitted a treaded bolt in the chuck and put a nut on the bolt. (Nuts are ofthen uneven. To even them, put a treaded bolt in your drill press and fasten the nut at the bottom of the bolt. Place abrassive paper on the litte "table" on the drill press and let the nut even itself against the table.) I used a 1,5mm brass plate that I made into a disk and plased it on top of the nut with the bolt running trough it. Onto the plate I put silver tape to make friction. The plate were fitted to the nut with tin.
For discs I glued abrassive paper to CDs, being as it is cheap and good enough. I locked the CDs in place with a small disk fitted with several layers of tape for friction, and sealed it all with a nut.

If you at any point gets toss in the disk and it starts to wobble then here is what you should do: Take the disk and make sure it is smooth and even, If this is not the problem lay it directely on top of the drill-chuck and then put the bolt through it and into the chuck. Thighten the chuck and seal it all with a small disk with a little rubber tape on it, and thinhten it with a nut. The disk wil have more support this way, and wil wobble far less.

Final count of cost for the sharpener is a little below 400Kr, less than a tenth of what a power hone would have cost me. Still, my system has all the qualities of a hone, included variable speed.

Hope this can be helpful to some of you, and many thanks to all the posters. This forum realy is great!

I like when people think outside the box well done
Ray

Where there is a will,there is a way!!!!

Terrezar,

Welcome to the Engraver's Café. You are a very clever and industrious young man. It is great to see a young person become involved with hand engraving and work out solutions to problems.

Your use of the English language is very good but I want to point out that the tool you are calling a "bur" is called a graver in English. In English, a bur is a tool that is used in a rotary grinder like a dentist's drill. For your assistance, there is a link under my signature line to the engraving glossary that will give you the names of all our tools in English as well as some in German, Italian, and French.

Beste ønsker,

Roger

Terrezar, Looking at your home made stuff brings back old memories, keep us posted. J.J.

So I'm not the only one with homemade tools! I was starting to feel pretty alone. I agree with you 100%; there is a feeling of accomplishment when you make something instead of buying it. Welcome to the forum, and I look forward to seeing some of your work.

Thank you all for replying, and thank you Roger. I was kinda wondering about the difference between graver and bur, so thank you for sorting that out. The norwegian word is "Stikkel," or "gravørstikkel" if you realy want to be specific.

indeed, young man, there's a place on this forum for folks like you. some of your ideas may be of interest to those of us who like to "make our own things". i have used cd disks, but use them with a grs power hone. i've affixed wet & dry paper to them as well as charging the disk with graded carbide abrasives. there are many items beyond my ability to create in my shop. these items i purchase. an example: my first ball vise was a common bowling ball. crude, but at the time i had no funds to buy a real one. i now own a grs magnabloc and a positioning vise. it's sort of an evolutionary process, at least for me. thanks for sharing with us.

I really like your graver handle system. It solves a problem. I hand sharpen after grinding the face in a fixture. Because I use alot of non standard graver stock that does not fit into the templates or my Hamler fixture. And also mostly because it is time consuming to remove the graver from the handle to sharpen, set up the sharpening system etc, and then re install the graver in the correct position in the handle.

Your system solves these problems. I think the GRS Quick Change system with a quick change graver handle also solves the problem, but yours might be better. I am afraid that the GRS system might have play in it, which throws things off when using the graver. Like having the graver slightly loose in the handle But I could be wrong.

One question: How do you secure the brass rod to the graver handle? With a set screw? I see a set screw secures the graver to the brass rod.

I am tempted to convert all my square geometry gravers and handles to your system. It would be much quicker for me to sharpen the gravers with your system when using a fixture like the dual angle GRS. I think the system would work with my Hamler sharpening fixture, since it is made to work with GRS quick change adapters. ( I think). If not, it probably would pay for me to buy the GRS dual angle fixture, and sell the Hamler fixture.

And do less hand sharpening, and end up with more accurate geometries.

Mr. Kevin Scott. The handle is turned out of sour birch, and then oiled. The hole for the brass piece is drilled. I use a 10mm brass rod, and therefore I make a 10mm hole in the handle. At first the hole will be a little tight so use the drill carefully unthil the hole is big enough for you to remove the pieces without any real struggle. The thing is, wood's alive; and therefore it acts a little like rubber and keeps the pieces in place without making them stuck. If this doesn't work it can't possibly hurt to fit a set screw to it, but at the same time it will slow down the process of changing the graver. Instead I think i would make the hole big enough to fit it with a couple of layers of rubber tape to create friction. A third option is to turn a little ring on the brass rod and put a rubber ring onto them to create friction.

Thank you for your coment, and what a delight that someone actually find my post that useful! I hope it works for you too.