Help, please: Sharpening round gravers

[Gerald Majors]

I sharpen sqaure and other gravers with a dual angle fixture and power hone. But now I need to use a round graver. How do I heel a round graver.

 

[mitch]

by rolling/sweeping them across the stone or hone by hand. i don't know of any fixture or gadget for the job. the main trick is making sure you maintain the full width of the graver radius. in other words, you don't want to end up tapering/shrinking the cutting face down smaller than the given size of the tool. it should be like bending a kink into a cylinder, not a cone. if you taper it into a cone shape it will wedge itself into the cuts and make the edges of the grooves ragged. it will also resist being driven through the metal- this will be especially noticeable if you're hand pushing, not using power.

 

[Mike Bissell]

I use the duel angle fixture. First set the angle of the heel tighten set screw, do not tighten the other set scew, this allows you to rotate the graver thus putting a heel on it. I use a ceramic wheel for this. Or as mitch said use a stone and free hand rotate the graver while crossing the stone.
As Rex always states, "your mileage may vary".

Mike

 

[monk]

i just do the face angle on rounds. i use the older grs holder. to polish the bottom. i just drag and roll the long way of the graver. i do this on very fine wet & dry or even rouge on paper. when relief is needed : i first grind away maybe an inch or so on the rear of the graver. i then heat to orange heat and bend to what angle i want. i then cut the tang to a suitable length. the one shown is the full tang. before use i'd cut it somewhat shorter.

 

[fegarex]

Monk,
I understand bending a tang for better clearance but I don't know how you keep the graver from dragging without a heel. It has no clearance.

 

[Sam]

I set my Dual Angle fixture tool post angle to 15° for the heel, and rotate the front of the fixture left and right as I lightly sharpen the heel on a ceramic lap on the Powerhone.

 

[monk]

rex : i can only say it works for me. the type cuts i do with rounds are generally short & decorative in nature. even when making long cuts, i don't seem to have the problem you describe. on some of the black powder guns,i've done, i have used rounds to do the scroll spine. again-- no problem doing that. suffice to say-- i don't do small, tight scroll that way. i think roger showed an example of this cut in his book-- was not fancy at all, but clean cut. i include here two "decorative" sample plates. i think the round makes for an interesting wriggle when used as texture in a design.