beginning inlay

Hi , I want to start doing some inlay but I can't find the info on the site search or You-Tube. Of course I didn't look at every post, I'm trying to avoid that.

Mainly I want to know how wide to cut the channel to fit the wire. I have 16ga soft brass and 20ga copper wire. That seems to be the part everyone leaves out.

I also need to know about annealing and drawing the wire through the wire gauge. Some say it's not needed, some say absolutely necessary.

Please help, thank you.

What are you searching under?

There is a very lonoooooooong post started by Danigirl (Danae) that will take you a coupla days to read, Find it.


Brian


Forget the brass, unless you KNOW the alloy for sure! It can be done, but it's the worst way to learn on.

Dave, There is an awful lot of information on this forum about inlay, mostly under the headings of Gold Inlay or Gold Inlay techniques. Try another search. Folks here are extremely generous with information, but respond best to requests from folks who have invested some effort to find answers for themselves. There are many videos on the subject on youtube, I have watched them myself.
Annealing copper wire is fairly simple if you have a basic propane torch. Coil about 3 feet of your 20 gauge wire evenly and tightly in about a 3" diameter circle wrapping the last 6" around the coil to keep it together.Mark the coil generously with a permanent marker and place it on a firebrick or a charcoal block and heat it until the marker disappears. Quench the wire in water and uncoil it. It will be soft. File a taper on one end of the wire so it will fit though a hole in your drawplate. Lubricate the wire with beeswax and pull it through with steady pressure. After 2 - 3 draws you will need to anneal it again and once again after you have it down to size.
Most inlays are done with about 28 gauge wire or smaller and the channel has to be sized to match the wire.
Good luck.

quite some time ago brian powley had a batch of silver wire that would give you good practice. don't know if he still has any. if not, rio grande sells goodies suitable for practice that wont ruin your economy. as for the brass, forget that. it will only hijack your efforts.

Thanks for the info. , believe me I've spent many hours looking through engraving forums and you tube. I'm finding much of what I need through indirect information. Jahn, thank you, that's most of what I was looking for but most of what I found started way past that point. So now I need to get some decent materials to work with and try it out.