Help, please: teach me to inlay?

Dani Girl

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I just bought my first 24k gold wire and have a Roland Baptist inlay template. I am not sure what I am doing, what the tip of the graver should look like, ... Don't know much really.

If anyone has tips, knows of any videos of inlaying, do's and don'ts, anything you can tell me really.

Greatly appreciated.

Danae
 

mitch

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hi Dani-

a couple years ago there was a long thread which, iirc, started as a survey on who uses what inlay techniques. we ended up discussing all manner of pounding gold into steel. not sure if that ended up in the tips archive, but you might be able to search it as a survey. i want to say that maybe Tira Mitchell(?) started it...
 

dlilazteca

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Mr. Powley, has a great video he made and is priced right, check out his website, there is more than one way to inlay gold so don't get confused by all the different replies.

The Babtiste template I use it for doing undercuts along the wall of your inlay.

The videos ive seen and like are,

Powley,

Glasser, engraving techniques ( I recommended that one in the tip section),

meeks book,

and Mackenzie dvd.

How you decide to do inlay will be up to you, what feels comfortable, I was taught one way by Gerry, I didn't work for me so I did it a different way but it accomplishes the same thing.

latest inlay, always improving






Saludos,
Carlos
 
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jerrywh

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I just bought my first 24k gold wire and have a Roland Baptist inlay template. I am not sure what I am doing, what the tip of the graver should look like, ... Don't know much really.

If anyone has tips, knows of any videos of inlaying, do's and don'ts, anything you can tell me really.

Greatly appreciated.

Danae

The best tutorial on inlay I ever saw was Sam Welche's video on inlaying. It is for sale on the FEGA website. Multi-color and Iron Inlay featuring Sam Welch
 
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dlilazteca

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The best tutorial on inlay I ever saw was Sam Welche's video on inlaying. It is for sale on the FEGA website. Multi-color and Iron Inlay featuring Sam Welch
Didn't know that one existed thank you very much will be ordering it soon

Saludos,
Carlos
 

KCSteve

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I'll toss in my two cents worth:

The Roland Baptise inlay point should wind up looking rather like a screwdriver tip. I'm pretty sure there's a thread on it in the Tutorials section of Steve's forum.

As we've discussed here recently, for your initial practice you may want to use copper. For the amount you're probably using it's not hugely cheaper, but a couple of bucks here and a couple of bucks there adds up. Copper will work harden much faster than 24K gold so it can be harder to inlay. For practice I think that's actually a good thing because if you can do it with copper you know you can do it with gold. And probably even some of the harder golds.

I'll pass along the technique I was taught for simple line inlays. It's fun, it's easy, and will get you some success right off. Inlays for larger areas I'll leave for better instructors.

For a simple line inlay cut your line with a flat graver the width you want your line to be. Your wire should the same width and the depth of your channel should be (as I recall) just under half the diameter of the wire. When you finish the channel take the same graver and make a series of cuts into the bottom to raise teeth. Start at one end and work to the other. On the first pass leave a bit more than twice the length of a tooth between them. That's because you then turn around and go back the other way filling in the gaps. This gives you a set of teeth along the channel that look like this: / \ / \ / \ / \
Make sure they don't come up above the top of the channel. Between the straight sides of the channel and the teeth on the bottom your inlay should stick very well.

I use a brass rod in my hand piece to hammer in the inlay. Set for a more slow, heavy 'thud' type action. Start at one end and hammer along. When you get to the end of the channel use the remaining wire to see if you pull the inlay back out. If you did it right it should have a really good grip - it may pull, it may break. Use a flat graver to trim off the excess wire.

I have a brass 'flat' graver I use to trim the inlay. Using yet another tip from the forums I use an old wine cork for a handle - all I'm doing is gently scraping away excess. Depending on how you've done that may be all the finishing you need. It's not uncommon to have to do a little polishing to get the area along the inlay to match the rest of the piece again.

If you pound too hard when you inlay the wire then you'll form a divot along the inlay that you'll have to work on.

This method avoids one problem with the traditional method of cutting the line with a 'V' graver and then doing undercuts - you won't end up raising up the edges of the line.

If you're going to bring an inlay up to another inlay (or bring the ends of a circle together, do not pound the part where the join will be down in the first line until you bring the second line up. Bring it up, trim the end off with a flat, then pound both ends down together so they can cold weld.
 

KCSteve

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Went and did a little poking around. First, always remember to click on the 'iGraver Tutorials' button at the top of this page - Sam has a nice little bit of tips on inlay there.

Over on the Lindsay forums I did find the thread on sharpening Roland's point: click here
I also found a nice thread on inlay that starts off talking about Les Schowes's inlay set: click here
And I found an old video Roland posted showing him doing a simple line inlay using his point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyRYD9OjUUU

And that's not even pulling up the various tutorial threads I know are here in this forum. I don't know if it's tagged as a tutorial but when Mike Dubber did one of the Colt Show Colts he did a wonderful thread on how he does inlay for large areas.
 

Dale Hatfield

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monk

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i don't remember where it was, but mike dubber did a real nice vid on this. quite nice as i recall.
 

Dani Girl

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So Annealing? You have to soften the metal prior to inlaying? I have some really thick copper wire. I could try inlaying big wire into big channels using the flat groove with teeth in the bottom of it technique with that. Do you just get the wire glowing hot and then let it air cool? Does that work with anything you're likely to inlay?
 

mfennessy

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Dull red should be enough. Actually I think it's just under that but it's easier to get it up to dull red at least so you can see that it got up to the the right temp.

I've switched to using a brass rod and a small hammer cause I like the solid 'thunk' as it drives the soft metal into the steel groove in one shot instead of a lot of lighter hits. It might be my imagination but I think it fills in the channel better. It seems about as fast as using the handpiece and seems to set better for me. Because of that, I don't bother to anneal anymore, even with red brass, which is pretty hard.

I'd definitely recommend annealing when starting out though.
 

Andrew Biggs

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Sometimes you can tell because the wire simply slumps down. You can use a cigarette lighter, kero lamp, or small gas torch...........just watch your fingers as the heat travels fast!!!!

Generally very thin wire doesn't need annealing. I'm talking 24k gold, fine silver and the other soft metals. When it's thicker it tends to need annealing. Yes, let it air cool.

Thin wire should be placed on a brick, stone or something to help absorb the excess heat........otherwise it's easy to melt to a small blob!!!!

Copper generally needs annealing unless you buy it dead soft from somewhere like Rio Grande.......beware, some electrical copper wire can be harder than the hobbs of hell.

Give it a go with copper wire on a practice plate and just get stuck in.........you'll soon have most of your questions answered. Fine silver is another that you can practice with and it's cheap.

Once inlaid, try ripping it out again. That will tell you if your technique is sound.

Cheers
Andrew
 

SamW

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And be sure the plate you are trying to inlay into is very solidly mounted so there is NO bounce or you will have a harder (or impossible) time getting the wire into the cavity.
 

KCSteve

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Larger copper will probably set better with a hammer than a handpiece. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to want to flow so you have to get it in one whack.
 

Aliasart

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Hello Dani & Everyone,

Thanks for starting this thread. I've been meaning to ask about inlay for a little while now. All these tips and pointers have been very helpful. I'm fairly new to engraving & wire inlay and have a few questions. I've studied several books (Meek, Brepohl, Untracht) and attempted the different techniques (undercut, displacement, with/without teeth). I practiced with copper inlaid into brass, fine silver & sterling silver inlayed into brass. I felt fairly comfortable inlaying copper and silver wire into both sheet and on a curved survace of a ring. But THEN I moved on to 2 pairs of white gold rings.

I didn't have any 24k around and chose to use 22k instead. Maybe this was my first mistake. Has anyone had any success inlaying lower karats of gold? Does everyone use 24k or fine silver?

I was attempting to inlay this 22k yg into 10k white gold and 18k super white gold. I prepped the 10k channels easily enough, but had difficulty undercutting the 18k, probably because of the hardness/density of the metal. Tried both carbide and HSS onglette gravers but the tips kept failing. I was using #0 and #2 Ongletts, 60 degree face, with a very short radius heel to get around the tighter corners. Is there a specific graver geometry I should try?

After struggling for a while, I switched over to using the punch/displacement method with slightly better success. BUT, when using a punch it was difficult not to damage the adjacent wall. Because I was now perpendicular to the chanel, the narrow diameter (0.4mm) of the groove required a very thin tool. How do you shape your punch tool as to not damage the other wall? Do you use some sort of crazy bend to avoid hitting the other wall? Should I have approched from more of a parallel angle and slid the punch along?

Another question: How do you finish off the end/tip of an inlaid chanel if it comes to a tapered point? Do you under cut that point? If so, how? I ended up using a 0.3mm ball burr to undercut. It was similar to leaving room for the corner of a princess cut stone in a V prong.

And, my last question for now...if inlaying a tapered wire, say going from 1.2mm at the widest section down to 0.4mm wide. Should you use 1 piece of wire filled down to fit OR should you use 2 or 3 strands of thinner wire?

Thank you so much for your time. Whatever info or tips you can offer are greatly appreciated.

Alastair
 

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