Speitzer graver

[Sam]

Frank Hendricks used this type of graver and as Mike Dubber pointed out, many others use it as well. From what I know the heel of the graver is shaped with curved facets which resemble an onglette. I've been experimenting with this geometry and am curious to know what others know and think about it.

 

[GTJC460]

I've used Mike's template to make this graver. It's a nice tool, but I pretty much use a 120 exclusively now. I modify face and heel angles to suit the job at hand.

A wide fat speitzer and a 120 cut very similar but I think the 120 is a bit easier to work with and modify on the fly.

 

[JJ Roberts]

Sam,I been using the onglette for 40 years with H&C and push graver,I now use the onglette push graver only when engraving birds and animals.If sharpen correctly you can do wonderful work with the onglette or Speitzer as the Germans call them. J.J.

 

[Sam]

Thanks guys. JJ, I knew you were an onglette fan. I've been experimenting with a version of this geometry for hand-push. I know Churchill using something similar and so do others.

 

[FANCYGUN]

Sam
They are both one and the same. They are not hard to sharpen with a heel once you get the knack. I actually prefer them when I recut lettering on barrels etc. i just eyeball the heel by feel as to the angle which feels comfortable to my hand. Badabing badabing. They also cut just great with no heel when doing animals and figures

 

[JJ Roberts]

Sam,If the onglette is not perfectly sharpen on bought sides it will drift off course when using the H&C to do straight line boards.I like the feel of the onglette under my hand as I push it through the steel.Like Marty I also sharpen them by hand. J.J.

 

[Southern Custom]

Nice to see this topic here. I just pulled out some onglette gravers I had lying around to access some tight corners on a job I was doing. Made me curious as to what else I could use it for. I too have experienced the drift and you are right J.J. You have to have it pretty even to avoid this.
Layne

 

[Roger Bleile]

FWIW, when I started learning engraving my only graver was an onglette that my brother had sharpened and mailed from Ohio to California. While the onglette is a useful tool, I use various square gravers for most outlining and shading these days.

Perhaps Martin or Sebastian can add more clarity to the terminology, but I have questioned German engravers and understand that what we call an onglette is commonly known as a spitz Stichel. Literally, pointed graver. The engravers trained at the Berufsfachschule Büchsenmacher Suhl do all of their scrollwork and most other gun engraving with the spitz Stichel. I am not fluent in German but, I don't think that speitzer is a German word though it may be a family name.

The image below is of Judith Gessner, at the engraving school in Suhl, engraving German scroll (grund Englisch Arabesken) on a Merkel action with a spitz Stichel.

 

[JJ Roberts]

Roger,Since Frank Hendricks studded in Germany from 1954 til 1956 and called his engraving H&C tools Speitzer,where else did the word come from,it ain't Gallic. J.J.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Dunno 'bout the original German word for 'em... but Vic Vasquez and others simply called 'em "spit stickers"...

Close enough?


Brian

 

[Sam]

FWIW, when I started learning engraving my only graver was an onglette that my brother had sharpened and mailed from Ohio to California. While the onglette is a useful tool, I use various square gravers for most outlining and shading these days.

Perhaps Martin or Sebastian can add more clarity to the terminology, but I have questioned German engravers and understand that what we call an onglette is commonly known as a spitz Stichel. Literally, pointed graver. The engravers trained at the Berufsfachschule Büchsenmacher Suhl do all of their scrollwork and most other gun engraving with the spitz Stichel. I am not fluent in German but, I don't think that speitzer is a German word though it may be a family name.

The image below is of Judith Gessner, at the engraving school in Suhl, engraving German scroll (grund Englisch Arabesken) on a Merkel action with a spitz Stichel.

Roger: Do you know if that graver has a long heel like we see so often on European gravers?

 

[GTJC460]

I have a friend that's German. He said the word we use "speitzer" does not exist in the German language. Spitzer however is a word meaning literally point.

I think the speitzer derivation is an Americanized derivation of spitzer or point graver.

 

[GTJC460]

Also, the traditional onglette and Dubber's version of the spitzer are slightly different in shape.

I posted a picture of a classic onglette and the Dubber Speitzer grind. As you can see there are some noticeable differences in the shape of the graver. The spitzer has more lift in the reshaping grind than a classic onglette.

 

[FANCYGUN]

GEE WHIZZZZzzzzzz All I do on mine is put a regular heel on mine without all the fancy rigamaroll. I ground my own from round drill rod and used a 50 degree face and I guess about a 17 degree heel that was medium in size (AKA I could see it easily). It wasn't rocket science. I basically copied what was in Meeks book and it worked.

 

[Mario Sarto]

"Speitzer" sounds droll to my ears
The geometries shown in Berts pictures - in Germany we call 'em "Spitzstichel".

 

[Roger Bleile]

Roger: Do you know if that graver has a long heel like we see so often on European gravers?

As I recall, they used the short heel.

I think a couple of people here have confirmed my comment that "speitzer" is not a German word, but to answer JJ's question, I believe the word is a corruption of the German terminology. I have heard many old time engravers call an onglette a "spit sticker" which is an obvious Anglicized corruption of spitz stichel.

I noticed that Mario spelled spitz stichel as one word. In German, two or more words are often compounded into one word.

 

[Mike Fennell]

Roger, you are correct. In German, the adjectives are simply piled onto the noun. Nice photos, guys.

 

[JJ Roberts]

I'm with Marty the onglette and the Speiter are the one in the same.In the right or left hand you can do anything with the onglettte weather with H&C or hand push.I remember one of our fellow engravers in Belgian said something about a left and right handed onglette, what is the geometry on left & right,that something interesting to me. J.J.

 

[Haraga.com]

JJ you may be talking about the right and left used for cutting the bead line when setting stones. If so, it is an onglette with either the right or left side made flat instead of curved.

 

[Marrinan]

I sometimes cut my face at a right or left slight angle to clean up the scroll or other edges after background removal. Fred