help needed, please

[monk]

attempting sams' radius on a flat-- not so good results. how can i do this without some sort of machine shop work. many of my flats have round shanks- some have the old style graver tang. i have a grs powerhone and the oldstyle grs graver fixture. has anyone done this ? i would like to do the radius with some sort of accuracy.
some of my gravers are very short, some are the original long style.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Best to have a uniform set... not always having allow for old tang style gravers, rounds, and mordern 3/32" all mixed up. But, since you got what you got, maybe start with putting a short flat on the tang end of the round stock to index from - with some consistency.

While I still have ALL of my old gravers from the beginning of time, I eventually came to the conclusion that the time saved by gradually switching to standard 3/32" for my bread & butter work (lettering) cut an hour or two off my workweek.

Besides, the older you get, the simpler you want things to be!


B.

 

[mitch]

i have a grs powerhone and the oldstyle grs graver fixture.

good news- you have exactly what you need. slightly loosen the screw on the pivot, then tape it in place (on the flat steel frame, across the knurled wheel & screwhead, back onto the frame). this will keep it from continuing to unscrew in use.

now, starting down low- at or near 0°- raise & lower the graver to gently round the heel without it being canted or rounded to either sides. if you want to get fancy and avoid raising the graver too far, wrap some tape on the vertical post to keep the fixture from rising above the desired heel angle- 15°-20° or whatever you're using.

with standard flat-bottomed flat gravers, i usually just round the heels by laying them down flat on a stone then lifting them as i drag them backwards. however, if you're making flats out of round stock/gravers, a fixture will keep things true.

 

[silverchip]

just what Mitch and Brian said.

 

[mrthe]

Monk with the Lindsay template i make it simply put the nylon base in a 30 degree angle +or- ( not plane at 1/2 inch like usually) with the 2000 grit diamond stone at the end , finally i move the template up and down 3 or 4 time, this work for make a perfect radius heel maybe making the same with your fixture work too

 

[monk]

nuts ! i now see the error in my thinking. looking at sams' foto, i mistakingly thought the radius was side to side. so it's front to back. i have done that on some of my flats. steve ellsworth taught me to do that to gain clearance on hobo rims. i thank you all for clearing away the fog in my brain.