Question about brightcut

Arnaud Van Tilburgh · Dec 13, 2008

I know that for brightcut you have to sharpen the face of the engraver on the ceramic wheel. For other cutting it is not necessary.
But I do it al the time, I think the engraver is sharper then.

Or is it wrong to have the face of the engraver polished when cutting regular scrolls? and then why?

Arnaud

jimzim75 · Dec 13, 2008

I've simple made a habit of sharpening the face all the time. I do mostly bright cut on Jewellery for a living.
The only time I wouldn't polish the face is if I wanted a matt finish in the cut to mute line.

Bright cutting sells better than unfinished random sharpening.

Jim

Arnaud Van Tilburgh · Dec 13, 2008

Thanks Jim, so there is no advantage not to polish the face, unless you don't want the cut to be bright.

But does that mean that when cutting shaded scrolls looks better when the cut is not bright?

arnaud

John B. · Dec 13, 2008

Arnaud,
It depends what your engraving on and in what style.
In many types of gun engraving for instance, bright cut is not wanted.
An example would be in most small English scroll.

John B.

Brian Hochstrat · Dec 13, 2008

John, I have found that using a highly polished graver on steel gives a blacker line (when in direct light) than an unpolished graver. Have you found that to be true, or do you prefer a duller finish on the cut?

Arnaud Van Tilburgh · Dec 13, 2008

John, it still isn't clear to me. I thought al engravings are like a pen or pencil design. That it is the light that makes shadows on the cuts and creates the blacks.
I also know that a photo is just one angle view of the engraving.
If you hold an engraved item, you still see the black and whites but they change wile moving it.

So do you mean that if the cuts are not bright, the lines look more black?

arnaud

TallGary · Dec 14, 2008

Arnaud,

I polish the face of my gravers to extend the "life" of the cutting edge. It is less likely to chip or fracture because of stress cracking if polished. I polish the belly of the graver to get a bright cut.

Gary

Mike Cirelli · Dec 14, 2008

In bright cut I like to have the most highly polished graver I can obtain. Especially on precious metals. Brass like metals seem to always need some polishing when done because the metal drags. My opinion is you can archive different effects based on the surface finish. A polished surface lends itself to gravers not so highly polished where a satin surface lends to a highly polished graver.

KCSteve · Dec 14, 2008

Leonardo (I think it was) posted a great sketch showing why a nice, bright cut line looks blacker than one from a rougher graver.

Basically if you have a narrow line then one cut with a polished graver will be smooth and reflect all of the light back into the cut / away from the viewer. A rougher cut will let more of the light bounce back out of the cut to the viewer.

For Bright Cut engraving you cut a wide line so the light is reflected back up to the viewer.

Found it!

Last post on page 3 of this thread

jimzim75 · Dec 14, 2008

If the final bright cut is good enough, you can skip the polishing phase on jewellery. That means labour saving
in the time charge. Also, the piece will not get over polished which also can dull the bright cut that isn't
consistent through the whole piece.

A good reason to try for flawless technique. Just watch out for the diamonds. They'll slice though a graver,
just like butter.

Talk to ya later,
Jim

John B. · Dec 14, 2008

Sorry Arnaud,
When you mentioned scroll I was thinking of gun scroll, not jewelry.
Some of you guys are responding about jewelry and that's different and not my bag.
On most things a polished face helps durability as Gary says.
But it's mostly the heel finish that gives bright cut or not and how light is reflected by the cut.

John B.

jimzim75 · Dec 14, 2008

I would tend to agree with you on durability also, John. Imperfection in the cutting blade is a nitch, where
a stress fracture are going to happen. Especially on a turn where there is more stress on one side of the
blade.

I been differing the keel length of blade to float the blade on the metal. The softer the metal the longer the
keel. Working in steel would be ideal for jewellery but for some reason it doesn't sell to fast. So, I just have
to do some negative designs and imprint the results.

Talk to ya later,
Jim

Arnaud Van Tilburgh · Dec 15, 2008

Thank you all for your support, but to me it seems to me that there is no unity about sharpening on the face.
So I think I still will sharpen the face on the ceramic wheel, because if I look at the engraver with my loupe (magnification X10) when I've sharpened only on the diamond wheel grid 600, there are sharpening burs.
Of course they are removed when polishing the heel.
So if it is only for time saving I think a carbide engraver with a polished face and heel compensates that.

I'm not only engraving on jewellery, I also work a lot in Titanium, for both jewellery and other items. Guns is not yet my target, because there are only a few. In Belgium you need a permission to own a gun.
But I think there is a market for knives.
Sure one can't be good in all, but I would like to try it all.

arnaud

Question about brightcut

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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