1st attempt at inlay, help!

[Doc Mark]

Just when I began to think that I was making progress...I screw it up by trying to inlay! I watched the FEGA video on gold inlay, twice, I've read everything I could find on the subject...so I thought I was at least semi-prepared...but noooo! First, I'm working with annealed copper wire as was suggested somewhere here on the Forum. I also made my punches, as also suggested, from bronze welding rod, worked great. The straight line attempts also worked fine. It was when I tried to cut a tight scroll and undercut it, that everything went to pot. How do you relieve a narrow, (flat #37 graver width) tightly curved line without scarring the outside edge of the curve with the graver either while cutting or undercutting? The 37 flat can't make the turn, so do you cut with a 115 or 120 degree graver first? If so, how do you relieve the preliminary cut to proper depth and then undercut both sides of the curve, again without scarring the edges? I saw on the FEGA video that you don't really have to "cut" the undercut, but only "punch" the groove on both sides of the line to lock the gold in place. Sam mentioned somewhere on this forum that some engraver could inlay "hairline" thickness gold line work, how is this possible? Are there different grinds for narrow relief cutting? The inlay lines I see on some of the knives and firearms presented on this site and others are phenominal in their unwavering evenness of line width, the lines are often narrower than a 1/4 round bur, so relief by rotary handpiece is not the answer.

Also Sam, I believe you once mentioned that you finish the rough inlay metal with some kind of fine grit "stones". What are these called again and where can they be purchased? What grits do I need?

Thanks for any help guys and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mark

 

[hmw]

Doc, yea, I know the problem all to well. What has worked good for me in the past, is if I am cutting a tight situation, I will initially use a 90-120 graver, then start to square up the shoulders and get some depth to the cut with a flat. I have ground a notch out of the belly of the flat back past the heel to clear the shoulder of the cut. I also cut a little at a time till I am all the way around the circle or scroll. Hope this helps. Good luck.......H.M. Wells

 

[Ray Cover]

Well, I don't know what a #37 is since I grind all mine from blanks. But the graver I use for undercutting is very tiny.

I grind a flat with a 60 degree face and a heel rocked between 30 and 25 degrees. The face of this graver is only .005" - .010" wide depending on how small the channel is. Keep the heel very short.

Also, I suspect that you are trying ot cut that undercut too deep and probably too close to the top of the channel. I like to keep my undercuts in the lower 2/3 of the chanell. This leaves plenty of meat at the top to keep the chanell from colapsing when gold in hammered in.

Remember you don't need to key this in as much as you might think for it to stay. As long as the undercut is a few thousands wider than the top the inlay will hold.

Also make sure you anneal that copper in rubbing alcohol instead of water. Water will leave a black oxidation on the surface the rubbing alcohol makes it come out of the quench clean.

Just as a suggestion, you might try using a 90 to do the channels. I use 90s for this and never have to square up the sides and this also presents a nice angle for the undercut to go into that holds the undercut graver belly up and away from the edges of the channel. It takes more control to cut the channel with the 90 but the trade off is it makes it much easier to do good solid undercuts (especially on a tight radius).


Ray

 

[Doc Mark]

Ray,

I thought you were supposed to heat the copper or gold wire to cherry red and let it air-cool. I didn't realize you quench the heated metal in liquid, I thought that quenching made metal harder.

When you say use the 90 degree graver, are you tipping the graver toward the interior of the channel to try and make the sides of the channel more vertical? When you spoke about the flat graver you made, is this the graver that cuts the majority of the relief depth?

HMW,

How long is your foot on the graver that you did the notch cut-out? Less than 1mm?

Thanks again for the help guys,

Mark

 

[Ray Cover]

On metals with iron in them it does make them harder. With non-ferous metals its just the opposite.

I use the 90 straight up so my walls slant at 45 degrees.

Tomorroew I will post a diagram of what my channels look like in cross section.

Ray

 

[Sandy]

Doc Mark,
I had problems with the drag also. So I modified A K1 and a #36. The photos show them. Hope this helps.

 

[Doc Mark]

Ray Looking forward to the further info. By the way, I just went to your website for the first time. WOW!...
Your work is spectacular! I would love someday, when the office doesn't demand all my time, to take some courses with you. I'm sure many of my lingering questions would be answered by your curriculum.

Mark

 

[Doc Mark]

Sandy,

Cool! Thanks, the photos make sense of what I've been reading. You obviously can't resharpen these too often, or you will run out of heel too soon.

Mark

 

[Brian Hochstrat]

Sam taught me a really easy and effective way to undercut. 1. taper the top side of a 37 flat down to a point 2. grind a 70 deg. face( it will by very tiny, because your tool is so tapered). 3. If you use a grs unit put the graver in the collet up sidedown and use it to punch the undercut into your channel, just walk it along the edge as smoothly as you can and don't get to carried away and distort the top edge of your channel. Also, after undercutting you must stone any burrs or pushed up areas off. Sam could probably explain it better, but I think this is a good technique to know. Stones are avaliable from Gesswein look in the supplier part of the forum. Good luck Brian

 

[Ken Hurst]

Doc, give me a call tomorrow and I'll walk you thru the steps. It's easy and won't take lomg to explain. When I taught the Montgomery Tech. school engraving course, the student learned the first day. Ken

 

[Sam]

Sam taught me a really easy and effective way to undercut. 1. taper the top side of a 37 flat down to a point 2. grind a 70 deg. face( it will by very tiny, because your tool is so tapered). 3. If you use a grs unit put the graver in the collet up sidedown and use it to punch the undercut into your channel, just walk it along the edge as smoothly as you can and don't get to carried away and distort the top edge of your channel. Also, after undercutting you must stone any burrs or pushed up areas off. Sam could probably explain it better, but I think this is a good technique to know. Stones are avaliable from Gesswein look in the supplier part of the forum. Good luck Brian

Yes, it's a good method for sure. Chris DeCamillus and Lee Griffiths got me on-board with this technique when teaching gold inlay in classes. It's faster and easier than the way McKenzie taught me, especially for beginners.

 

[Ray Cover]

Here are diagrams of different ways to set up inlay channels vor wire inlay.

First let me say that in everything dealing with mechanical properties and the laws of physics there are trade offs. To gain in one area you often have to give something else up in another. That is why you have different people who prefer different approaches to this. We all have different strengths and weaknesses in our abilites and we all end up choosing methods that help overcome weaknesses and play to our strengths.

The first method is the method I generally use for line inlay. Here is my reasoning why.

I choose the 90 angle for two reasons.

1. it cuts deeper than the 120 when making the same width line. Also I find that the anlge of approach is better for making effective undercuts that grip tight yet still leave a strong opening to the channel to prevent collapse.

2. The corner "A" that is presented on a channel that has had the sides "squared up" on it is precarious at best. That corner is asking to be damaged and eventually you will get the graver into it and mess it up, especially on small tight radi. Whereas an angled side like on the 90 you can scrape that and not do too much damage because you have a lot of meat that resits the graver edge cutting it. That doesn't mean you can't mess it up just that the mechanical set up is stonger and better resist damage when we humans come along and do something stupid.

I do use that last method but only on tiny things like dots or very small circles. The reason it is not my general choice is that this method displaces the metal. That metal has to go somewhere and following the path of least resistance it goes up altering the surface fo the metal. This method will hold gold but I have two major problems with it.

1. When that displaced metal on the edges of the channel is hammered in with the gold wire, where does it go? The logical answer is, right back where it came from. Of course, not all of it goes back because you have gold in the way. However, since the gold is generally much softer than the metal it is going into it stands to reason that as the steel is punched backdown it is squishing the gold back out of the channel. It can't push it all out but I wonder how tiny of a footing is left to actually hold the wire in.

2. Unless the gold is all squished back out of the footing there is still displaced metal left at the surface of the inlay. To make it worse, unless you have been very consistent in hammering things back into place you risk having a ragged edge at the top of the inlay. Now for most people this is not a problem on flat surfaces like practice plates. But on spherical or cylindrical forms it can be very dificult to make sure you are hammering everything down evenly and from a consistent angle.

Like I said these all work. Try them all and find the one that works best for you. Hopefully the drawing will be helpful in seeing how they are supposed to be set up.

Ray

 

[Sam]

Thanks for your post, Ray. I copied it over to the Tips forum. / ~Sam

 

[Ray Cover]

That's fine Sam

I need to edit it for spelling. Why is it that my fingers can cut well but when they get close to a keyboard they get all fumbly and hit hte wrong keys?

Ray

 

[Doc Mark]

Ray,

Thanks for the diagrams, they really help to visualize what is really needed for line inlay. It makes much more sense now that I see you don't have to create a perfect square-sided deep channel and then undercut it to inlay a fine line.

Mark

 

[hmw]

Doc, I dont really know how long my heels are, but I have always felt comfortable with long radiused heels. My noched gravers look a lot like Sandys.....thanks for the posted picture Sandy.