Help, please: Engraving a bombay ring

[gantzi]

Hi,

My name is Guy and just recently I started engraving more seriously.
I'm a jeweler from Israel and I also started engraving with push gravers and optivisor.
First, I want to thank you guys for this amazing forum and community, this is an invaluable source of knowledge.
I also need your advice about engraving a 14K bombay ring (rounded ring) like the one in this link:
http://origin.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/135/9/AAAAC5XruyAAAAAAATWagA.jpg

I never engraved a ring like this and it feels like engraving a ball of glass! I have a lot of slips
Do you have any tips or advises about how to engrave it better and avoid the slips?

Thanks a lot,
Guy

 

[Sam]

Hello Guy, and welcome to the Cafe!

Assuming the ring is a common karat gold and not something unusually hard, it should be engravable without too much trouble (depending on your experience). However, engraving a tight radius with push gravers is quite difficult. I can tell you that if I had to do it I'd be slipping all over the place, too. If I didn't have a pneumatic handpiece, I'd engrave it with hammer & chisel as that method provides greater control on curved surfaces than push gravers. Aside from that, modifying your design so it more radius-friendly, like short cuts going in directions that minimize slips might help. But with a little practice you can most definitely engrave rings with hammer & chisel...I know because I've done them. Just remember that a tighter a tighter radius demands greater tool control whether it's hand push, hammer & chisel, or handpiece.

 

[mitch]

Hi Guy-

Another thing that may help when engraving curved surfaces is to always try to cut "uphill". As much as the design will allow, start your cuts down low on the side of the piece and cut up toward the high spot in the center. Once your graver goes over the 'crest of the hill', so to speak, it becomes much more difficult to keep the point in the metal and also to see the design.

Can anybody illustrate this concept with a drawing or even a video clip?

mitch

 

[gantzi]

Thank you very much for the advises!
Sam, your tips make perfect sense, but since I have no pneumatic graver and zero experience with hammer and chisel I decided to try to make a graver for my foredom hammer handpiece and see if I can use it as a power graver.
Mitch, I understand what you mean even without the video and it makes sense too. I'll try to cut my lines this way.
I'll let you if it worked
I appreciate your help!
Guy

 

[monk]

doing tiny , tight curves requires a very short heel on your graver. the heels should be not much thicker than a hair. also grinding the sides a bit can help with the visual aspect of what you're doing. the gravers should also be very sharp, any portion of the graver contacting the metal should be highly polished. such allows for a "brighter" cut line. send us a few fotos of your progress.

 

[gantzi]

Hi monk,
Thanks for the tip about the graver's heel and polish.
I made a square graver with a very short heel for my froedom hammer handpiece h.15 (see pic).
With that graver I was able to engrave on the curved ring with no slips:clapping:
However, my hammer handpiece kicks like a mule and is very difficult to control so I'm not really happy with the result and I'm not going to share it
But I'll keep on practicing on curved surfaces and if I think the result is worth sharing, I'll definitely share it here.
Thanks again
Guy

 

[KCSteve]

For cheap and easy practice 'rings' cut off small sections of copper water pipe. Around here I can get two-foot long sections at the hardware store for a couple of dollars and two feet of pipe makes a lot of rings. Copper cuts just about the same as silver.