Question: Help on rolex steel!

[simone-cervellati]

I have to put a pretty simple design on the back of a rolex, it is a rush job and the costumer is one I don't want to disappoint..

problem is the piece is 904L stainless steel, can I use an HSS graver to engrave it?

it should be 490 vickers, wich is around 50 HRC while HSS is 60 HRC, so it should be enough..

what are your thoughts before deface a rolex permanently?

Simone

 

[sam]

Yes it can be engraved with HSS. It's pretty hard but I've done them without much trouble.

 

[simone-cervellati]

Thanks Sam!
The Cafè saves me again,

I also added the type of steel to the first post (naturally that's what I would forget to include ) it's 904L

 

[simone-cervellati]

should I expect point breakage? New alloys worry me

 

[Brian Marshall]

Light the candles and incense... and you'll be fine.


Brian

 

[monk]

i more or less learned how to sharpen on a stainless gun. have done 2. will do no more. sam, artemiss, and andrew biggs all seem to do these watches , and i might add- a beautiful job. if they have fits with these watches, who knows. if i were to do one, i'd surely try to get some scrap of the same alloy as the watch, and take it where it will go.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Rolex backs are fine to engrave. A little bit tough, yes, but nothing to worry about. What are you intending to engrave on it and are you using air assisted tools? If you are, you'll have to remove the back or you'll risk damaging the movement. Lindsay carbalt gravers make engraving Rolexes a doddle.

One word of warning before you all decide to go out and engrave your Rolex watches. Careful. If you want a Rolex main dealer to service your watch after engraving he might refuse to do so. If you send your engraved watch to Rolex for a service, I've been told that Rolex will polish the engraving out. I had to have the movement put back into a rose gold Daytona and the main dealers refused to touch it and told me they risked losing their dealership if they did.

This is why Kindler & Thorpe exists, they guarantee and will service their custom engraved watches and are a brand in their own right. I don't think anyone would have a problem with Rolex if just the back was engraved but once you start cutting into the case and bezel it's a whole new ball game. Generally it shouldn't be a problem as there are many independent watchmakers out there that will deal with servicing, etc, but it is something you should be aware of.

 

[Tim Wells]

I've used Carbalt but mostly just plain old M42 cobalt which is just a tougher, harder HSS on Rolex backs with no trouble at all. Just take your time and don't alter the polish on the back from the correct original finish. Depending on the model, some are polished while others have a matte center section. Put the back in some thermoloc or jewelers shellac (red) and get busy, you'll do fine.

People get intimidated unnecessarily because the name Rolex strikes fear in the hearts of mere mortals. But the truth is, that circular piece of stainless doesn't know that it's a Rolex part. They're just more expensive to replace after a goof; so don't.

 

[simone-cervellati]

The design is an infinite symbol spanning the whole center section, the 2 curves turn into copperplate micro lettering along the way, with the names of the costumer and her husband, the letters are about 1.5 mm high, with uppercase ones around 3,5 mm, it's not a hard design and yes, the part is detached from the watch, I would not lay a finger on it otherwise.

I normally do a practice plate in the same material, but it has to be ready tomorrow. And it's a job from one of the biggest jewelry stores here in my town... So goofing it up is not even contemplated I will repeat to myself the great engravers mantra: "it is just another practice plate.. It 'a just another practice plate.."

And finally my carbalt graver started exploding into shards without no reason, trough sharpening I must have gotten to a section that has some structural issues, it breaks and shatters even while carving nickels.. Last time that happened I did goof up a nice knife blade and I had to waste 3 hours to fix it.. So HSS is going to be my graver of choice..

Thanks everybody for the great tips!

Simone

 

[Marcus Hunt]

I normally do a practice plate in the same material, but it has to be ready tomorrow. And it's a job from one of the biggest jewelry stores here in my town... So goofing it up is not even contemplated I will repeat to myself the great engravers mantra: "it is just another practice plate.. It 'a just another practice plate.."

Sorry, this is the wrong mantra. If you take the attitude that it's just a practice plate, if things go wrong you can just leave it or file it out and start again. When I was an apprentice my father took the opposite attitude with me. He taught me to cut as if everything would eventually be going to a customer. If I screwed up a scroll or a bird, he made me finish it but then went on to make any corrections - that's experience. There was no way out, and to be honest when engraving a watch there is no way out. Unlike a gun, there is no room for error and any mistakes cannot be filed out.

So my advice is: When cutting a practice plate your mantra should be "This is the real thing, this is the real thing, this is the real thing......" It will stand you in far better stead than vice versa.

 

[simone-cervellati]

AHAH, Great Marcus! But then I do treat practice plates like they are the real thing and try and finish them and fix mistakes when I make them.. it wouldn't be a good practice plate if I just filed my mistakes away..

So maybe we should use different mantras depending on the situation? and do the practice plate with the same level of concentration and accuracy we'd use on the real thing so we get to learn from it,then treat the real thing like it's a practice plate, so we don't overthink it?

Simone

 

[simone-cervellati]

It all went well! the steel was way easier to cut than I thought it would be, it felt a bit gummy but it did cut nice and crisp,

Only problem I had was that the matte finish on the metal would trap ink (costumer wanted it inked) and create "ink stains" on the surface wich had to be toroughly cleaned and that brought to some of the ink coming out of the micro script wich is by it's own nature not very deep, so I had to ink the thing 3 or 4 times and it's not as black as as it could be.

The watch will be worn, so I guess the engraving will inevitably fill up with "natural" pigment in the form of very gross dead skin cells?

Thanks all for the help! the Cafe is an invaluable resource!

simone

 

[Dave London]

SC
Thanks for letting us know the results, Dave

 

[pilkguns]

Excellent post Marcus!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mrthe]

I Agree with Marcus, great Mantra advice for all!
Simone please post photos when you finish it!
In bocca al lupo!

 

[Big-Un]

I agree also with Marcus. If you aren't willing to do your very best when practicing, how do you expect to "ramp it up" and produce your best when the time comes? Doesn't make sense. Just do your very best at all times and in all things.

Bill

 

[Brian Marshall]

I'm thinking that the stances here somehow got reversed? Or misunderstood?

Simone was saying that HE treated his practice plates EXACTLY as if they were customers work. And that he considered ALL other work just more "practice" albeit in a different form...


Marcus stated that you should NEVER consider actual work to be another "practice plate"...

Marcus would be right - IF the practice plate was done without putting "everything" you have into it.


Simone does that, therefore somehow, this has gotten misunderstood...

Or perhaps I need to back to school to understand what I read?



B.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

I'm thinking that the stances here somehow got reversed? Or misunderstood?

Simone was saying that HE treated his practice plates EXACTLY as if they were customers work. And that he considered ALL other work just more "practice" albeit in a different form...


Marcus stated that you should NEVER consider actual work to be another "practice plate"...

Marcus would be right - IF the practice plate was done without putting "everything" you have into it.


Simone does that, therefore somehow, this has gotten misunderstood...

Or perhaps I need to back to school to understand what I read?



B.

Brian, what I actually said was not "NEVER consider actual work to be another practice plate" but rather, to try to consider every practice plate as the real thing - there's a big difference.

If you're just cutting a practice plate with no real thought, if you go wrong it really doesn't matter does it? No harm done, file it off or start again on another plate or just bin it. This is easy to do but engraving is not like drawing, we can't just erase or grab another piece of paper and start again especially when it comes to working on "the real thing". So, it's better from the off to treat every practice plate as if it's a customer's piece. That way, when it comes to working on the real thing there is no fear.

People often ask me, "How can you work on such an expensive gun?" or "Doesn't working on a £25000 watch scare you?" and the answer is "No". To me it's just another job and it doesn't matter whether it's a £60 Spyderco or a £40000 Patek Philippe - each has to be done to the same high standard. If you practice like everything is the real thing, when it comes to actually working on the real thing it's easy - it's just another piece of metal.

Simone says, "But then I do treat practice plates like they are the real thing and try and finish them and fix mistakes when I make them.. it wouldn't be a good practice plate if I just filed my mistakes away." That's good to know and this should eventually lead to "No fear" with whatever he choses to engrave. So nothing has been misconstrued Brian, it's just semantics. Like you say, put everything you have into your practice plates and then you're doing the same thing as if you were cutting the real thing so the mantra (if there needs to be one) should always be "This is the real thing," and not a backwards engineered "This is a practice plate," when it's not!

 

[atexascowboy2011]

TOUCHE ! MARCUS !
Better than, TO S... !

 

[Brian Marshall]

I'm gonna guess that the misunderstanding is over what a "practice plate" consists of...

There are what I call "scratchin' plates" - where you test an idea, maybe a leaf, a flower center or petal, width of a border, width/spacing of a rope edge, an over/under effect, the angles/sharpness and results made by a freshly sharpened graver. It may contain several weeks worth of these tests. There is almost always one lying next to my block.

Those are the plates that you are supposed to fill the proverbial 5 gallon bucket with in order to eventually become "competent". <grin>

In my shop, and in my classes - the real practice plates are supposed to be carefully laid out, engraved to the best of your ability, then dated and signed. And CAREFULLY FILED AWAY.

As the years pass, you do fewer and fewer of them - they are definitely time consuming - and "work" takes their place. Thus work eventually takes the place of the practice plate.

I think that was what Simone was alluding to...


B.