Graver steel preparation

Baygraver · Apr 21, 2009

I have been using some liner gravers from EC Muller and am beginning to think they come in an annealed (soft) state. This is because they seem to lose their edge rather quickly in soft metals, like copper and brass. I’ve emailed them via their website, but so far no answer.

I remember some time ago I hardened and then tempered (I thought) some of these gravers and they still had issues. I thought perhaps I didn’t harden them correctly, as they don’t come with any instructions and distributors don’t seem to really know.

It seems that gravers from GRS are ready to go when they arrive (annealed, hardened and tempered) but I’m not actually sure about this either. Also, GRS doesn’t make their own liner gravers to my knowledge.

It seems that the wide variety of steels used by manufacturers have their wide variety of requirements for how to properly prepare these gravers, eg. some are hardened to cherry-red, others need higher temperatures and/or can’t be reheated at all. We consumers seem to be left with a certain amount of trial and error, especially the latter.

Can anybody help me out with this?

Regards, Jim

Kevin P. · Apr 21, 2009

Hi Jim, Muller has been making gravers forever; but that's not to say they're faultless. It would be better to provide details; as how do you sharpen then. And what are you using them for? Annealing and tempering can be tricky.
Finally more details from you are necessary. Otherwise it's the pig in a poke situation.
Kevin P.

John B. · Apr 21, 2009

Hi Jim,
Not to take anything away from the other companies and their liners.
But give the Ngraver liners a try.
Ray makes a great liner and they hold up....even in gun steel.
And the right length to start with.

Baygraver · Apr 21, 2009

Kevin P. said:
Hi Jim, Muller has been making gravers forever; but that's not to say they're faultless. It would be better to provide details; as how do you sharpen then. And what are you using them for? Annealing and tempering can be tricky.
Finally more details from you are necessary. Otherwise it's the pig in a poke situation.
Kevin P.

Kevin, I could give the example of a 6/6 liner graver to be used for block lettering. Has it already been hardened and tempered? It doesn't have the rainbow "discoloration" sometimes seen to suggest that it's been already hardened and tempered. If I assume it's only annealed whereas it's already also hardened and tempered, I could be doing damage by proceeding with hardening and tempering (again). Jim

Baygraver · Apr 21, 2009

John B. said:
Hi Jim,
Not to take anything away from the other companies and their liners.
But give the Ngraver liners a try.
Ray makes a great liner and they hold up....even in gun steel.
And the right length to start with.

John, Good to hear from you.

So you are suggesting that Ngraver's liners come already annealed, hardened and tempered (?). Regards, Jim

armcarve · Apr 21, 2009

Hi Jim,
I purchase some of my gravers from Gesswein Tools. They sell Mullers Sweedish Steel Gravers & Liners. They are pretempered for work on nonferrous metels such as gold, platinum, silver & copper. They say they can be retempered to suit individual requirements. Sometimes just cutting down the graver to fit the handle can mess-up the temper if over heated on the grinding wheel. I've never bought a graver that was not pretempered, but some people like to retemper to there liking.

I second John B. , ngraver makes a great liner in different sizes & they are made to cut on steel. I'd call Ray over at ngraver & talk to him.

good luck, Amy

Baygraver · Apr 21, 2009

armcarve said:
Hi Jim,
I purchase some of my gravers from Gesswein Tools. They sell Mullers Sweedish Steel Gravers & Liners. They are pretempered for work on nonferrous metels such as gold, platinum, silver & copper. They say they can be retempered to suit individual requirements. Sometimes just cutting down the graver to fit the handle can mess-up the temper if over heated on the grinding wheel. I've never bought a graver that was not pretempered, but some people like to retemper to there liking.

I second John B. , ngraver makes a great liner in different sizes & they are made to cut on steel. I'd call Ray over at ngraver & talk to him.

good luck, Amy

Amy, I think you're answering my question. It sounds like you're saying these gravers come already hardened and tempered. The coloration of tempering must have been removed, although I've seen some gravers (Grobet?) that have tempering coloration on the tang end.

I've also noted at times that in reshaping the cutting end of the tool it "colors" (despite attempts to frequently cool it), meaning that the temper is changed. My understanding that repeated tempers don't especially affect the "hardness" of the graver.

Thanks. Jim

Big-Un · Apr 21, 2009

Rest assured, N-Grave-R liners are ready to cut, just keep them sharp.

monk · Apr 21, 2009

many modern tool steels, such as hss can be heated to red heat without temper loss. having said that, whenever i sharpen-- even carbode, i habitually cool with liquid. for 1 thing, it prolongs the life of your diamond.. i also think it provides a slightly better finish.
besides, even if not needed, it will not hurt anything.

Tom Curran · Apr 22, 2009

When I grind a graver down, I wrap the end that I'm grinding in a bit of toilet paper, well soaked in water. Dunk it occasionally as you grind, and it will keep the tool from getting too hot.

Do not use cloth in the above, it can grab on the wheel, causing unimaginable damage. The TP just falls apart, has no tendency to grab.

Tom

Marcus Hunt · Apr 22, 2009

I've used Muller liners for years without problems. To check whether it's soft or not run another graver's edge that you know is hard along one of the edges near the tip of the liner (not across the lines though). If it's hard then the graver will scoot off but if it's soft it will bite and mark. To harden it heat to red and quench in oil immediately. Don't hold it at red or you'll burn the carbon out and then the liner is useless (I learned this as an apprentice many years ago). When it's cool polish of the fire scale so you have a bright steel tool again.

Now comes the really tricky bit, the tempering. With a very low flame just play the liner through the edges of it for fractions of a second at a time. As soon as it starts to colour quench it in water. You want the colour to be light straw. You might get away with nearly dark straw but any darker and it'll be to soft and you'll have to go through the process again.

With carbon steel this process is finite and if you keep going through it 4 or 5 times the tool will not hold an edge as the steel will be buggered.

BTW, this process holds up for all carbon steel gravers. (HSS needs another process which I'm not sure about but liners all seem to be carbon steel). Carbon steel gravers still have a place in the engravers armoury even with all the new super dooper materials. When used on a soft mild steel they often out perform a lot of other materials. It was all engravers had in the old days.

Baygraver · Apr 22, 2009

Marcus Hunt said:
I've used Muller liners for years without problems. To check whether it's soft or not run another graver's edge that you know is hard along one of the edges near the tip of the liner (not across the lines though). If it's hard then the graver will scoot off but if it's soft it will bite and mark. To harden it heat to red and quench in oil immediately. Don't hold it at red or you'll burn the carbon out and then the liner is useless (I learned this as an apprentice many years ago). When it's cool polish of the fire scale so you have a bright steel tool again.

Now comes the really tricky bit, the tempering. With a very low flame just play the liner through the edges of it for fractions of a second at a time. As soon as it starts to colour quench it in water. You want the colour to be light straw. You might get away with nearly dark straw but any darker and it'll be to soft and you'll have to go through the process again.

With carbon steel this process is finite and if you keep going through it 4 or 5 times the tool will not hold an edge as the steel will be buggered.

BTW, this process holds up for all carbon steel gravers. (HSS needs another process which I'm not sure about but liners all seem to be carbon steel). Carbon steel gravers still have a place in the engravers armoury even with all the new super dooper materials. When used on a soft mild steel they often out perform a lot of other materials. It was all engravers had in the old days.

Marcus, Thank you so much for these valuable details about preparing high carbon steel. I was aware that each steel type has its optimal preparation approaches. I wish the manufacturers were a bit more forthcoming with such details.

Regards, Jim

John B. · Apr 22, 2009

Baygraver said:
John, Good to hear from you.

So you are suggesting that Ngraver's liners come already annealed, hardened and tempered (?). Regards, Jim

Hi Jim, good to hear from you too.

I'm not sure I understand your use of the term 'annealed."
The steel would have to be annealed or in the soft state when the teeth were cut or when/if the tool blank was going to be bent.
After that the maker would harden it and then temper it, usually to a light yellow straw.
Some may polish it back to a bright white steel and others leave it as is.
All liners that I know of including Ngraver's are sold in the hard state and need nothing more than maintaining a sharp cutting face.
There is no need to anneal them unless you want to change their shape, like bending.
Then you would need to reharden and carefully retemper them without burning the tiny teeth, as Marcus says.
Also, Tom C. gave great advise about keeping liners and all gravers cool when grinding by holding them in wet toilet paper or a paper towel to keep them cool on the way to the water dip.
Jim, a way to get a good cut and maintain liner teeth after sharpening a new face is to jab it into the end grain of a little block of hardwood. This polishes the points and strenghtens them.....but I'm sure you knew that already.... just rambling on.

Marcus Hunt · Apr 22, 2009

Hi John, I found it was nearly always due to miss timing on the grind stone that sent a carbon steel graver soft. HSS didn't seem to have the same problems though. One thing with the manufacturing process though is they didn't always temper the gravers properly. So sometimes we used to find them breaking because they were too brittle! There was nothing for it but to temper them to light straw. Some engravers used to recommend tempering new gravers as a matter of course.

John B. · Apr 22, 2009

Yes Marcus, it can happen with any makers product.
A heat treat process can get away from them.
But thankfully, a lot less now days.
And a lot of good tools can be ruined on a grinder by the user.
With carbon steel tools becoming too hot on the grinder and then dipped while very hot.
As you point out, these become too brittle and then need to be annealed, re-hardened and re-tempered.
Even HS can be easily over heated on the grinder.
We are making mostly impact cuts and I believe it's advisable even with HS to keep all gravers reasonably cool on the grinder to avoid adding brittleness.
The use of slow speed diamond laps has helped a lot in that regard.
Best,

Baygraver · Apr 22, 2009

John and Marcus, You both are making excellent points here.

I got into this quandary when I was heating carbon steel liner gravers to create a curve in them. I might have burned out too much of the carbon, thereby hopelessly damaging the metal. I subsequently learned to wrap the cutting end of the graver in wet paper and do the heating and bending farther back toward the tang. I still felt I needed to retemper the cutting end. This may not be an issue for high speed steel liner gravers.

Regards, Jim

Marcus Hunt · Apr 23, 2009

A good point Jim. It's worth pre grinding a straight liner if you're going to bend it so you're not trying to bend a huge mass of metal. Then if you've got a fine nozzle on your torch use it to localise the heat at the point where you are going to bend. You can often achieve a good bend in 2 or 3 attempts but make sure you start bending as soon as it hits red. Then you'll have to harden and temper as previously described but by keeping the main heat for bending away from the tip you'll get a lot of use out of the liner before you get to the bend.

Ron Smith · Apr 23, 2009

Jim,

the "old ways" were very sufficient for their time. The materials engravers work on these days are often beyond the capacity of the older steel tools. Not to say they cannot be altered for todays purposes. Your problems sounds to me like you took the temper out of them if you heated them to bend them. I did this (reshaped and rehardened) all the time, even with tools right from the factory as they vary. When you have to heat them to bend them, you have to do the whole process. If that is the case you will have to go through the process that marcus described. These carbon steel tools will proform well if you get the tempering right. It is pretty critical however to get the color right. The light straw Marcus was talking about is hard to define unless you see it, and a slight difference in interpretation will make a big difference in the performance of the tool.

It would help if you had someone to show you the process, but even then it will take practice. You might be better off buying Ray Phillip's liners, but I don't know if he makes them in lettering sizes. John B. might know this.

Ron S

Ron S

Kevin P. · Apr 24, 2009

Jim, it looks like Marcus, John and Ron have covered all possibilities.
I have no idea about the breadth of your experience I just want to mention "The Complete Modern Blacksmith". It has a comprehensive section on tempering and annealing. It may add some more detail to what these eminent practitioners have already said.
Kevin P.

Baygraver · Apr 24, 2009

Ron Smith said:
Jim,

the "old ways" were very sufficient for their time. The materials engravers work on these days are often beyond the capacity of the older steel tools. Not to say they cannot be altered for todays purposes. Your problems sounds to me like you took the temper out of them if you heated them to bend them. I did this (reshaped and rehardened) all the time, even with tools right from the factory as they vary. When you have to heat them to bend them, you have to do the whole process. If that is the case you will have to go through the process that marcus described. These carbon steel tools will proform well if you get the tempering right. It is pretty critical however to get the color right. The light straw Marcus was talking about is hard to define unless you see it, and a slight difference in interpretation will make a big difference in the performance of the tool.

It would help if you had someone to show you the process, but even then it will take practice. You might be better off buying Ray Phillip's liners, but I don't know if he makes them in lettering sizes. John B. might know this.

Ron S

Ron S

Ron, In my limited experience I've certainly found tempering can be a delicate operation. Often I am using a liner for doing a wriggle cut, say on a letter. If the temper isn't sufficiently drawn the teeth quickly break. If it isn't "hard" enough, the teeth quickly lose their crisp edge. I've seen doing "multiple" or re-tempering mentioned a time or two....

Marcus, Your point about pre-grinding out the top, thick portion of the graver where it's to be bent, before heating, is well taken; one of those "duh" moments.

Thanks to all of you for these great points. Jim

Graver steel preparation

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