hand pushers

[chris]

i would like to ask hand pushers
over the years what type of graver steel have you found to be best or are they much the same
the tiny flat some engravers put on the tip to help in chipping do you think that would do the same on hand pushing tip or just increace face angle
im just looking for the strongest tip for pushing
thanks
chris

 

[Daniel Houwer]

Hi Chris,

I fell in love with carbide recently!
But I allso use a lot of old tool steel for gravers. But the hardening and annealing is a bit tricky.
HSS is a lot easyer to handel if you buy it hardend.

Good luck from a hand engraver (/gravemach user) to another handengraver.

Daniel

 

[monk]

the type steel used would be dependent upon what you are engraving. any graver will cut the soft stuff. carbide is very hard, but lacks a needed property called toughness. carbide, with a good geometry, and a minimal heel can work even though it's brittle. then if you take and increase to 120 degrees, regardless of the graver makeup, it will be more durable. fiddle with the face angle. even the old hss gravers are good. i'm using some that were bought maybe 25 years ago ! i think you can make any tool work pretty well with the correct geometry and the proper use of the hand. you very seldom are going to stress a tool with simple push graving. where you create catastrophy usually is with the hammer or with one of the powered graver holders. these tools let you speed up and in tight turns in harder steels and long heels, you usually find trouble. short heels, go wider than 90 degrees, steeper face angle, slow up a bit in tight turns, you'll do better, no matter what the graver's made of !

 

[chris]

pushing

thank you
daniel & monk
for your time and knollege
you have been helpful
chris

 

[cowboy_silversmith]

Hi Chris- I began learning push engraving in 1982. In 1985 I bought a Mascot brand #46 High speed steel flat graver for the sole purpose of bright cutting. 22 years later I am still using the same tool for the majority of my bright cutting by push engraving. I would say that this tool has chipped out many linear miles of silver through literally thousands of buckles and assorted jewelry. If you look closely, you can see the pitting left from years of the chemical reaction to my fingers. This pitting is on both sides and the bottom too. However as I resharpen the tool from time to time, fresh steel is exposed and the pits are never a factor in the crispness of the bright cuts. This tool is absolutely the finest graver I have ever used and has out lived so many of my other gravers including other #45 high speed flat tools I used for other specific purpose that were not used not nearly half as much. I do not know if Mascot makes high speed tools anymore as I have searched the internet on more than one occaision. If you find one, I would say it would be worth the money to buy it without reservation.

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

 

[chris]

hi
cowboy
any thing to last that many years has to be dam good
thanks
chris

 

[Marcus Hunt]

I used to find the type of graver I used when hand pushing was dependant on the toughness of the item being cut. The bog standard 'tool steel' graver I still think cuts the best when it is used on softer steels like AyA would use. However, generally the better quality steels have gotten that bit tougher in recent years and the 'yellow tang' HSS graver does a formidable job.

To be honest I never really got on with carbide. I would only use it on something so tough that it would render the previous two gravers useless. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, I found carbide quite brittle and on some of the awkward shapes and angles that most guns have, the stresses on the tip would cause it to shatter. Secondly, in the days before Power Hones it was quite difficult to sharpen. Also, some of the cuts it made would seem quite crude compared to the other gravers. I know there are some engravers who swear by carbide especially when polished and used on metals such as silver.