JJ,
Muratic acid in the shop is the best way to ensure rust on everything. It is so bad that I won’t even keep a bottle of it in my shop. Any escaping fumes rust up everything.
I sort of met Lynton in the 70’s. He was at a gun show, I think in New Orleans, engraving a knife. I watched in amazement for at least an hour and would have liked to have talked, but his full attention was on his engraving. I was just a teenager then, but it was the moment that got me...
I like studying the engraving of others as inspiration, and Knife Purveyor is a company that usually has a nice inventory. They have a “Sell your Knives” tab, so that could be an option to explore. The site can be found at: https://www.knifepurveyor.com/category/engraved/
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I’d research milling machine chatter. On a mill, chatter can be caused by looseness in the machine, speed of the cutter, feed rate, dull tooling, and probably some other aspects that I’m not thinking about. Maybe start by tightening down everything, increasing the tool rpm, and slowing the...
Rain kept me indoors all day, so one of my projects was to see if I could transfer pencil drawings and ink pen drawings. After several failures I did find a method that works that is very simple using hair spray.
First, wipe down the metal to be engraved with a solvent to get it absolutely...
To add a crazy sounding option, bacon grease is an old machinist standby for tapping holes and similar operations. In my experience, it works well for machining operations of steel that require lubrication. I’ve never tried lubrication for engraving, so I can’t vouch for how it might compare...
I “piped” my shop a couple years ago, not specifically for engraving, but just so I wouldn’t have to break out long lengths of hose everyone I wanted to use air tools away from the compressor. I used PEX tubing, which was a breeze to run and had all the pressure capacity I would ever need...
I picked up a World Precision Instruments microscope and stand a few years ago from a government auction for under $35. Since I only engrave as a hobby, and only for one or two hours at a time, it has been good enough for me.
If I were more committed to engraving, I’d probably need to upgrade...
l posted my “work around” for sharpening square gravers in an Apex type system a while back. That thread can be found at: https://engraverscafe.com/threads/ramblings-of-a-rookie-making-a-square-hole-collet.27681/
Being a novice, I usually prefer to see the experts’ answers rather than offering my opinion.
However, the sharpening system you choose needs to align with the engraving tools you have. If you go with a quick change collet system, then the GRS Apex would match up well. If you will be using...
According to this post, the stamped letters in front of the trigger are an inspector’s marks: https://winchestercollector.org/forum/winchester-rifles/Model+94+Lower+Tang+Question/