Hoping for Inlay Tips

[Dani Girl]

I had another go today and (hopefully) have gotten it all in securely and without any teeth sticking out.

Much swearing was done. I had to recut the teeth a couple of times. I think point geometry was getting a bit too steep, and the point too dull, it just wasn't always cutting a tooth so much as shoving a rounded groove into the metal. there was not really any flat metal showing without teeth when I was done.

we made a skirt to catch the gold. I think I heard somewhere fill the file with chalk then swipe. is this file OK? then stone, then sand minimally.

 

[Davesobel]

I haven’t done any inlay work, but ai have done a lot of hand filing and finishing of metal, and I’d recommend to avoid that file. A double cut is pretty coarse and will leave a pretty rough finish. Emery paper attached to a small piece of steel would work just fine. And if the knife scale is flat, the extra width of paper on a small plate of steel will make it easier to keep it all flat.
Chalk in the teeth is an old trick to avoid the little pills of metal getting stuck in the teeth and causing deep scratches.

 

[Dani Girl]

Thanks Davesobel, I went with your advice seeing its what I'm most familiar with and comfortable and it was very quick and easy. ended up with the slightest amount of dipping down of the gold and rounding over of the engraving which is all to be recut anyway so that's fine. overall I'm pretty happy. I ended up with one tiny line of ti showing through the gold that I'm going to let slide located at the top of the border where the big gold scroll/leaves flow from.

I've started using the Concepts app to draw on my note 20 phone. it works on anything with an s pen and on my laptop. pretty smooth Learning curve. happy to start a thread on that if folks would like one.

 

[EngraverHand]

I thought I'd just share a few videos a quick youtube search shows

This one's just tapping gold wire into scroll outlines (all undercuts already done but good hammer technique)

This one's a chap doing a little tapered line displacing the undercuts, half an hour long

This one is a ?fishing lure? being inlayed, looks like pretty good technique with a tiny knife/flat undercutting tiny tapering lines and a flat making teeth in the bottom of his pocket. He skips the bit I wanted to see most how he went with all the converging lines. Just music and action.

It's a shame this is only one minute, could watch him work all day

Another video of lines being inlayed, just music and action. Nice work.

Lee Griffiths holding a gun in his hand and re-inlaying a pheasants tail which was coming adrift, nice music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asbuh9qnlpw

Three lines of inlay side by side tapered down to one, teeth raised with a flat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQH1OTgNntw&t=59s

Glad you liked my video I would have done it a little different today though.. instead of putting the gold first, I would have engraved all the outlines and then put the gold.. then backgroound removal and shading at last

 

[Dani Girl]

Further regarding this knife and my difficulty with the inlay point chipping off or getting virtually no undercut grooves at all.

I decided to yank it out of the block which was easier than expected. I found the thermo loc hadn't melted to it at all but was just loosely rattly sitting there. I made teeth on the sides and drilled angled back and forward deeply all through the bottom, filled the drill holes with thermo loc one by one then filled the whole thing again with, I hope, one solid well mounted block of thermoloc.

it feels nice to cut now

I'll have go do another inlay down the track in this to see how much smoother it is.

this snow leopard was printed at 600dpi and I've just figured out how to double that quality in printer settings.

 

[Chujybear]

I had another go today and (hopefully) have gotten it all in securely and without any teeth sticking out.

Much swearing was done. I had to recut the teeth a couple of times. I think point geometry was getting a bit too steep, and the point too dull, it just wasn't always cutting a tooth so much as shoving a rounded groove into the metal. there was not really any flat metal showing without teeth when I was done.

we made a skirt to catch the gold. I think I heard somewhere fill the file with chalk then swipe. is this file OK? then stone, then sand minimally.

probably a number four, or even a 6 cut file, either that or a single cut file. you wont be moving much material

 

[Dani Girl]

 

[Dani Girl]

I am still wondering why my graver tip chipped something like 400 times through the engraving of this knife. This resulted in many slip repairs and some occurred right at the last couple of strokes which sucked.

I could not believe how hard it was to make the undercuts and how quickly trying to do that chipped out the graver. I could hardly get a single bur raised to hold the inlay down before half the graver tip snapped off in it. It was nuts. Even doing the engraving after all that... crazy amount of chipping.

Was it the titanium it was made of in the first place? Was it how I have my gear set up? Was it how much wobble/vibration I had in the drill press I last used to shape and/or narrow down my gravers? Did that drill press fill the carbide bits with fractures or something?

On another note, would any engravers be willing to send me a private message with how much you'd charge to do a job like this? I was offered $1,000 Australian Dollars to do my best work on this titanium folder. I feel like I can't make it financially viable to operate in a career-type fashion in Australia.

On a side note, I'd advise engraving into the gold be done after all other engraving and after blackening... it looked great before but then after paint got into the gold it just looked dull.

ta

Danae

 

[Dani Girl]

I think my bulino effort rather sucks so don't terribly need lots of backup there, need more practice. Have there been many new bulino engraving resources released in the last 5 years or so?

 

[Dani Girl]

Annealing copper.

sure it gets dead soft when heated to a soft glow, but if I wipe it with sandpaper to get the scale?/soot off it ends up harder than when it started. I have some ferric chloride and i have some citric acid, should I be using that instead?

 

[Adder]

First, I think you have done a wonderful job and I can`t see your slips either (if you have any)

Will follow this tread because I also want to know answers to your questions, specially about annealing copper.
Blackening engraving before gold inlay is probably a good advice if there`s not another alternative there.

Maybe you could try gravers that`s not made of carbid when doin inlay in titanium? Carbide gravers are brittle and I know that someone prefere HSS og M42 gravers instead when making inlay channels.

Jørn-Ove

 

[pblack]

Check out Douglas Pryor. He raises and sculpts a lot of copper plate. In this video of a raised rose, he heats up the plate with a large torch but someone in the background says they use cans of MAPP gas. He quenches the plate in baking soda water (think this is just doing double duty), pickles it to clean it, then dunks it in the baking soda water to neutralize the pickle.

Not sure how well this will help with copper inlay but if he can do the artistry that he does with this process I don't see why it wouldn't work.

 

[Dani Girl]

thanks for those replies folks. If i have this right getting the copper (or silver) hot enough to a dull glow (wouldn't matter if you got it up to near melting) is the part that softens it. I think the quench part is just impatience/lack of desire to stand around a few minutes while it cools. the pickle is to clean and the baking soda rinse is a bob standard way to neutralise the acid.

I guess I should get some pickle out and see if I can improve on the store bought dead soft copper softness. I think it could be a tiny bit softer.

Has anyone tried the new graver steel Lindsay started making that was listed between carbide and m42 on titanium?

 

[Adder]

thanks for those replies folks. If i have this right getting the copper (or silver) hot enough to a dull glow (wouldn't matter if you got it up to near melting) is the part that softens it. I think the quench part is just impatience/lack of desire to stand around a few minutes while it cools. the pickle is to clean and the baking soda rinse is a bob standard way to neutralise the acid.

I guess I should get some pickle out and see if I can improve on the store bought dead soft copper softness. I think it could be a tiny bit softer.

Has anyone tried the new graver steel Lindsay started making that was listed between carbide and m42 on titanium?

If I remeber correct Marius Mellebye (engraverhand) bought some of these gravers (m48) from Lindsay. Maybe he can answer your question, or you can ask the same question in Lindsay forum if no one here replies. Steve use to answer in a couple of days

Jørn-Ove

 

[Dani Girl]

If I remeber correct Marius Mellebye (engraverhand) bought some of these gravers (m48) from Lindsay. Maybe he can answer your question, or you can ask the same question in Lindsay forum if no one here replies. Steve use to answer in a couple of days

Jørn-Ove

Just hopped on Instagram and asked him and he spoke very highly of them for working in Titanium, so i've ordered 10 blanks.

 

[mdengraver]

Inlay Work - Ganoksin Jewelry Making Community

This article discusses working inlay techniques when working with metals. Find out more and learn the best way to perform these inlay techniques.

www.ganoksin.com

 

[ByrnBucks]

I think my bulino effort rather sucks so don't terribly need lots of backup there, need more practice. Have there been many new bulino engraving resources released in the last 5 years or so?

Good evening Dani Girl, Your work on this project looks great and I would believe many would be very pleased to achieve this level quality in a piece. Thanks for showing and Hope you have an excellent week. BB

 

[mdengraver]

 

[jswanswan]

Dani,

First of all, your work looks great.

The way I learned annealing we heat to the dark red glow then quench directly in the pickle, then neutralize in the baking soda water. (I bet Douglas Pryor quenching in the soda water first gets the majority of the flaky scale off first and saves him from changing is pickle as often)

Think of the molecules of metal locking into a structure as you work it. When you heat to annealing temperature, you excite those molecules and dissolve that structure. Quenching freezes it there. Slow cooling can allow the metal to naturally fall into a structure again as it cools. Thin wire cools so fast this doesn't seem to matter as much as with bigger pieces. Overheating past annealing temperature can also have undesired effects, especially with other alloys. Not as much of a worry with copper.

If you are holding the wire with sandpaper wrapped around it and pulling the wire through to clean it, that will work harden the wire quick. You will want to bend the wire as little as possible to keep it as soft as possible for inlay, so yes it's worth it to clean it with the pickle.

I don't put much stock in manufacturer's stated softness. A mill I buy gold alloy wire from (stated half hard) sends wire so hard I can't even make a jump ring without it cracking apart. If you get your annealing down it will make your life a lot easier. It's so wonderful to work with truly dead soft metal.

So, slow even heat to annealing temperature (dull cherry red glow in copper) then quench. Then don't bend it at all until you inlay.

Keep up the good work and thanks for the discussion. I'm a grizzled old jeweler but a baby engraver and I learn a lot from your adventures.

Julie