Help, please: Intro And a Question On Heels

Hello, first time poster here. I want to start of by thanking Sam for this site and everyone who generously contribute.

I am a law enforcement officer in South Texas. I have only been engraving for about two months now and am very green but about as handy as they come. I am on a pretty tight budget and don't really aspire to take this much further than a hobby that I have been interested in for years. I have thus far made my own gravers from files, planner blades and a allen wrench. My vise is a converted 4 jaw lathe chuck. I am mainly interested in western style bright cut engraving, and what some might call Texas style. I have a attached a pic of my first buckle in steel, nickel, and brass. It's obviously far from perfect in design and execution but I am proud of it given only two months of experience in brazing, and engraving and essentially being self taught. I also plan on making my daughters a buckle for Christmas.

My first question to yall.....I have attached some pics of a couple new gravers I have made from some .125 HSS square and would like some input on the heels. My goal was to make them both with long "heels" based on many of the reccomendations here since I am push graving. The flat has been tapered to about 2.1mm with a 45 degree face and a radioused 15 degree heel. The other is a 90 degree square with a 45 degree face and a long 15 degree heel. Both gravers were sharpened with a homemade Lindsay type template. These are the first gravers that i have sharpened using some type of sharpening fixture and would like to know if I did the heels correctly...particuarly the square 90. It looks a little odd to me, but I am unsure how it should look. I would estimate the heel to be about 4mm long. I simply just ground it down more than the usual few strokes required for the short heel. My problem is I have seen a lot of long heel (or no heel) reccomendations for push graving, but not many pics of a what a square graver with one would look like to compare. Any help or suggestions y'all might be able to provide on either graver would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

T.J.

First welcome to the Café. Nice work on that buckle. I leave the questions to the experts, I am strictly a part time hobbyist that marches to my own drummer. I am also from Texas, I am located in Abilene.

i think if anybody was telling you to make a long heel, i think they were still thinking in the fractions of a mm

If you are pushing by hand, then the long heel on the 90° graver per your photo appears to be appropriate. If you are using a pneumatic handpiece, a heel length of approximately 1/4mm works really well.

Very Nice buckle, and welcome to the forum.

I have a few homemade gravers that I`did use before. Some of them was exatly like Yours, but I figured out what suited me best, determined how long it should be.
Most of my graverheels are as long as yours, but not so steep if you understand my poor English. Use what is best for you is my recommendation.

Jørn-Ove

the buckle is great ! not perfect, but yer still learning. you will find very short heels will be needed to do very small scrolls. this is a must, as long heels in a very tight turn-- the outside wall of the scroll will show chatter marks. the geometry one uses is more of a personal choice, rather than a cut-and-dry choice. if you're like many of us, you'll end up with more than a hundred gravers. many graver styles, coupled with different geometries= a whole bunch of gravers.
it's best, i think, to get comfy with one geometry. learn the others as the need arises. btw-- welcome to the forum.

Thanks everyone for the input. The below picture is something I cut this morning with the new gravers. I really struggled with the flat. It was very difficult to get the flare cut when compared to the one I made from the planer blade. The face and heel are the same, but the one I made from the planer blade is significantly smaller...maybe 1.5mm or just slightly under. I'm not sure why that would matter considering I'm only mostly cutting with the corner anyway. It just did not want to glide through the cut nearly as easily when I began to roll the graver out at the end of the cut and required significantly more force. I even found my self having to go back and take another pass or two to get the flare I wanted. I'm not sure if that is normal or not.

You guys are absolutely right about the heel drag on the square graver, as I found out in some of my practicing this morning. Right now though, I use the flat for most of what I'm doing and am pretty much only using the square to attempt to shade with until I can get a propper liner.

Keep on keeping on. Your work looks great. I often make 2 or more passes with my graversmith so I say you are right were you need to be. Welcome to the form, and I lived in pleaston tx. for a few years.i do miss it down their.
Skill comes from diligence.

multiple passes are ok to achieve the desired result. done with care, the cut will appear to have been done in one pass. the differences you feel is a good thing. to me that's very important. when a cut "feels" right, chances are that the cut will look right. most will eventually gravitate to power assisted work. sadly, at least for me, the power assisted way of doing things kind of destroys the ability to really feel what the graver is doing.