mdengraver
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Most of the discussion on tool sharpening is for pneumatic devices. How do the tool geometries of push engraving differ from the geometries used for pneumatics?
Tool Sharpening
- Thread starter mdengraver
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Marrinan
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Personally I sharpen the same. Fred
For chisels they can be the same. Most hand-push engravers use a different geometry and/or different heel length. See my video on hand push engraving in the Tips Archive, and also read the Ken Hunt thread as Ken has drawings for the shapes of heels used by traditional English engravers. In a nutshell, a very short heel which is suitable for chisels and pneumatics may not perform as expected for hand pushing except for very short, light cuts.
Brian Marshall
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
My hand pushed gravers are a bit different than those I've been using for power assist over the past 15 years.
NO parallel heels. Less than 45 faces - mostly around 40 degrees, some 37 degrees...
Sadly, I've not been physically able to hand push for 12 years now.
If it were not for power assist and a contraption I rigged up to suspend my arm, I would not engrave at all these days.
Brian
NO parallel heels. Less than 45 faces - mostly around 40 degrees, some 37 degrees...
Sadly, I've not been physically able to hand push for 12 years now.
If it were not for power assist and a contraption I rigged up to suspend my arm, I would not engrave at all these days.
Brian
mdengraver
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Thanks Sam. It's important that old, especially new hand engravers know that the geometries of push engraving are generally different, something I wasn't aware of for a long time. I thought the geometries used on the engraving forums at first were a little strange after being trained in school as a push engraver in which I was taught to do them quite differently. It's been hard for me to break that mindset. It is also helpful to know since there are times as a jewelry engraver I prefer the control that push engraving offers me, and would want to continue the geometries I was trained in and became comfortable with. I guess the pneumatics require a stronger cutting angle to withstand the impacts that pneumatics introduce on the engraving tool.
For shading on flat soft steel and soft metals I used a square graver which had about a 30° face and maybe 10° heel, with the length of the heel about 1/4mm. I did mostly hammer & chisel for everything and used a hand graver to shade whenever I could. I wasn't one of those guys who used a hand graver all day like Prudhomme and most jewelry engravers did. My short heel 30/10 square worked for what I needed but it wasn't a graver for general use like the ones Ken Hunt describes and the ones you see in the old jewelry engraving books.
Today I often grab a standard 105 for fine shading and crosshatching. If I want to go all-push I'll use one like I used in the video, but I rarely have a need for that.
This job from 1988 was cut with hammer & chisel and 99% of the shading hand pushed with the graver I described.
Today I often grab a standard 105 for fine shading and crosshatching. If I want to go all-push I'll use one like I used in the video, but I rarely have a need for that.
This job from 1988 was cut with hammer & chisel and 99% of the shading hand pushed with the graver I described.
mdengraver
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Beautiful works Sam really flows nicely. This makes for an interesting discussion. Many new people don't fully appreciate the incredible amount of effort, time and work, patience required for some of these masterpieces. Stunning examples! Does anybody else find that printing out such complicated engraving on your printer falls completely short of reproducing the color, variation, contrast, etc. that we see on our computer screens?
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DakotaDocMartin
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
You need to have a calibrated computer monitor and printer with enough of a color gamut to reproduce what is on the monitor. I use a Datacolor Spyder 4 to calibrate my monitor and my photo printer is a Canon i9900 with 8 cartridges.
maybe i'm wrong about this, but it works for me- i have so many gravers, so many different geometries, i usually end up using a graver i didn't really want in the first place. such usually doesn't pose a problem. my problem is keeping track of it all. i color code gravers by basic angle, and the heels, and faces--- i don't have a way of sorting it all out. so i just look at the face & heel-- if i think it's right-- i just use it.
Marrinan
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Sam, Those are really beautiful. It is a good thing we charge by the hour for design time, as well as aall the cutting and finishing time. Again, beautiful work. Fred
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