Question: Heel Angles

[DKanger]

I have a tendency to mull things over in my subconscious. While taking Brian Marshall's class, he was explaining tip angles using 15 degrees as common. But he said that each person will have a "sweet spot" and those angles can vary widely.

I've been mulling that over and wonder how much your hand size would have to do with it. A guy with a big ole fat hand might have trouble leveling his graver out because his hand would hit his work and he would always be gouging metal because it didn't have enough lift. Conversely, a small female hand might require less of an angle because she could drop closer to her work. Each person will hold their graver in a position that is most comfortable for them.

Any thoughts on this?

Dave

 

[John B.]

Dave,
I think what you say may be true in many cases.
If you have a small item or plate mounted in your vise, something that does not overhang the edge of the jaws you can engrave with no heel or lift.
In this case, after you set the point your hand can remain level or below the top of the item allowing the graver to move forward in a flat plane.
Ray Phillips of Ngraver Co does not usually need to put a heel on his gravers at shows when doing demo cuts on money clips for this reason.
There also is no background relief work on these.That usually requires a heel to give edge clearance.
There are many overseas engravers who put no regular heel on their gravers.
Some of them do put a very long taper on the two bottom sides of their squares.
Many of these people do outstanding work so I guess it's all what you get used to using.
Best.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Dave

Yes, the 15 degree lift thing is only to get people started. I personally like 17.5 which just gives me a little more clearance for my fingers and stops them bumping into things.

It can also depend on the surface you are working on so you may have to raise or lower the heel to be a bit more comfortable.

There is no hard and fast rules on any of this stuff as John says. It's really just a matter of what works for you.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

I use the Chris DeCamillis geometry, I make two sort of very long heel, as long as the graver can be used, in an wide angle that I prefer. This results in a point so I can put a very small face on the graver.
This lift angle is 7° for regular gravers and 12° for a bulino one, like Chris demonstrates on his DVD.
This geometry I use only on C-Max blanks,and I don't use any other than these, ordered 10 just to be sure I don't run out of gravers.

The face I use 50° or 55° with a heel of 20°

My common gravers are 105° wide.

But as already said, one has to find out and that only works when one experiments

arnaud

 

[pilkguns]

I think there are lot more factors at work than just hand size. how you hold the graver handle for instance. If your fingers are flat across the bottom, that is they don't go around the handle you can cut with a much lower heel than someone whose fingers complety under the handle. How long your graver projects from the handle/handpiece is also going to affect how much clearance you need where. How high your hand fits to the vise is another factor. Using a dropped wrist technique (wrist below hand) will force you use a higher heel angle than if your wrist is angle down to the hand.

 

[monk]

one can suggest an angle with which you should start. but nobody can mandate what angle is going to work best for you. you'll also find you may want to vary this angle if you begin working on curved surfaces, items of differing hardness, etc. sometimes , a heel isn't even needed. ex: none of my flats are heeled except the ones i use for coin carving. those ones have a curved heel to avoid gouging the nickels' rim.