spadebit
Member
Hello to all you engravers, here are a couple of images showing a horncap for a saddle that I am working on. Its made of annealed O1 tool steel, cut very nicely. The horncap is a big one, dont be fooled, its will be 5.375 across when we are done. You can see the beggining of the areas that will have silver inlaid into them. So, for fun here is a run down of what I have done to date. The entire pattern was produced within a CAD drawing program- done it for the first time for fun and learning. I transferred and started cutting the outline work with a 105 Square-I have about 9 hours cutting time and done it all under a scope. Then I began the background removal. I used my square and cutaway at the edges, then went to my heavily modified 37 flat with a radiused counter grind on the belly, very short heel at 20 degrees. That worked real well for nice flat removal of material. Stipplers proved to be quite an issue. Standard stipple points just didnt hold up??. I ended up taking small round files that we use in the tool shop, tapered on a belt grinder under a water spray to keep them cool. These points seemed to handle the work a lot better. Yes, I did have to resharpen on the hone every once in awhile. That brings us to this point where I have 28 hours of back ground and stippling work. I am pretty sure that the shading will surpass that. I know I am old, just hard to get comfortable with being slow as well. I will post more later if life allows me to finally get it done.