Nickel Silver question

[thughes]

Hi all,
I have a question that I should have asked before I tried to cut. Is it just my lack of skill, or is "nickel silver", or whatever that shiny silver stuff knife makers use for guards, really crappy stuff to cut. It's my own knife, so I didn't screw up someone else's, and it doesn't look so bad at arms length, but this stuff really seems to cut crappy. It's not hard hard to cut, but it just cuts really raggedly and looks horrible under the scope. Is this common with this stuff? The knife was made by a friend of mine and he's getting pretty good and wants me to do some scrolls on his guards, but I don't know about this stuff.

 

[mitch]

it's not you.

 

[Brian Marshall]

I agree... not fun stuff to cut. Once you do a few, you get a feel for it, but never been a favorite of mine. Castings are worse than sheet.


Brian

 

[Crazy Horse]

I cut a lot of the material. You have to keep in mind that it is nothing more than brass with 18% Nickel added. The Nickel is the problem. Nickel is very hard, abrasive and tough. Brass in itself is abrasive and when you add Nickel it can be a problem. If you cut by hand, not air assisted, you will notice a difference in feel as some areas will cut smoothly and other areas will feel gritty. That's the nickel that feels gritty. I don't believe that the Nickel mixes evenly with the Brass and thats why it may feel gritty.

I would suggest a blunter face angle. Try 50 or 55 degrees.

 

[Sam]

I cut a ton of the stuff back in the day, as did many other hand engravers. It's gummy and can be nasty, but is engravable.

 

[bronc]

Nickel kind of tears to some extent instead of cutting clean. But if you do enough of it to figure it out it's no big deal.

Stewart

 

[thughes]

Thanks for the info. Yes, it isn't hard, but some places are harder than others and sometimes it just kind leaves a real ragged edge. I've got some bar stock I'll practice on.

 

[John P. Anderson]

I was stuck engraving several rifle plaques that had been made out of bronze rather than brass. It was gorgeous stuff but a pain to engrave unless you carved it like wood. It was super slick. They didn't know any better and neither did I until it was to late to change. Now they have me test the material before it's used and everyone is happy.

Seems like every material has it's good and bad points. I liked the bronze for carving deep relief but lettering was near impossible.

John

 

[monk]

you may also want to take a dip now & then into some lube. this might help a bit.