making homemade engravers?

[Roki1967]

Hello,

First off, I am brandnew to this Forum, and have enjoyed reading all everyone has to say about this beautiful art form. Thankyou in advance for many hours of resourceful reading.

I work in a metal supply warehouse, Metal Supermarkets Canada, and I have access to many types of metals, and several types of tool steels, now at home I do hobby machining, I was wondering if anybody knows where I can find a tutorial, plans, or otherwise on how to make my own engraving tools, I am mostly interested in hand engraving, I feel it brings alive a traditional feeling of accomplisment to an age old art. I have just received in the mail the book Art of Engraving, by James B. Meek, and would love to supliment his readings with a few webpages on tool making or engraving techniques, I have not done any engraving as of yet, so I would like to start it off on the right path.

Thankyou very much for your time,

Robert J. King

P.S.: Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Wecome aboard Robert.

Well, your in the right place as there are plenty of people on the forum that can point you in the right direction.

Good luck on your engraving adventure

Cheers
Andrew Biggs

 

[santos]

Homemade gravers

Hi Robert

Welcome to the Café

I had the same question a few years ago after reading Meek’s book , how to make my own gravers ?
I have found an old French Book “l’encyclopedie Diderot d’Alembert “in which there are many gravers used in the early 17th century.
Here’s a link to this book, see the chapter GRAVURE, EN TAILLE – DOUCE , you have some plates with all the old tools
If you don’t read French you can use the automatic translator, hope it works :
You can print the plates in A4, so the tools are at scale 1/1

http://portail.atilf.fr/cgi-bin/sea..._DIR=/var/artfla/encyclopedie/textdata/IMAGE/


Then I was lucky to found at the flea market here in France, 5 or 6 old gravers, so I’ve copied these. In the photo you can see my old gravers and the new ones I've forged with old files steel. The handle is boxwood machined on my lathe. The carbon steel received the same heat treatment than my knives (850° C then tempered in water)
This kind of tools is really nice to get an inexpensive try on engraving, you can improve them using HSS steel but the heat t. is a bit difficult.

After a few engravings with these pushed gravers you will see how hard is to cut without slipping, and you will dream of a pneumatic graver.


You can’t engrave without a ball vise, Meek shows a nice one, and here’s mine.

Voila!
Jean , graveur amateur

 

[monk]

making your own tools

some "experts" say wood lathe chisels and such cant be made from old metal machinist files. hogwash ! even little needle files can make gravers. secret heat and anneal. grind off the teeth, and rough shape to the graver configuration. reheat to cherry and quench. then draw temper- and you have a very good graver that will work for many years. any questions monk45@verizon.net

 

[Roki1967]

Hello,

I would just like to say thankyou for all the information, as well as the fantastic links, the Engish translator worked perfect, and I am now looking forward to actually printing the entire book with plates in English. I am facinated by old manuscripts and this one is like finding a pricless treasure, the whole book will provide hours of educational reading. Thankyou once again,looking forward to making my own gravers, both from scratch, and now from some old shop files, take care.

Robert

 

[Andrew Biggs]

I've also read that Winston Churchill makes his own gravers by using old industrial hacksaw blades. He then mounts them in home made handles.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Roki1967]

Will have to keep the hacksaw blads in mind, we use a metal cutting bandsaw at work, we also carry mild steel 1018, tool steel in 01/S7/D2/A2, as well as 4140/1045, and 1144, and too many other metals to mention, any suggestions on which to use to use for engravers? Different heat treating tempering I would guess, wil have to ask the boss, he also owns a heat treating company, it is good to have contacts at times, and the wealth of information that comes with it.

 

[firefly]

D2 might do, tempered a little hard, as would the other tool steels you mentioned. Since you have access to professional heat treating, you're on the ground floor. A very good couple of steels would be M2 and/or
M4 (high speed steels). Cryogenic treatment really brings out the best in these.

Greg Neely

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Or you could just buy the gravers and make your own handles etc.

Gravers are availble pre-made for about $10-$25 each and last a very long time. Mind you, even the handles are cheap. There are plenty of places that sell them.

Personally I wouldn't be looking at making your own gravers as the economics of it (unless you really know what you're doing) just arn't worth it. It's hard enough learning just how to control the tools and design an engraving.

At least if you buy the tools you're off to a good start and can then concentrate on the rest of it.

Just my thoughts

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Samuel]

gravers

I am a hammer and chisel engraver/ hand engraver and I use o-1 and w-1 for many of my tools, but I dont engrave heat treated knife bolsters and such. In the first of the three videos by Linton Mckenzie shows basic graver manufacture and geometry, ( the video is available for rent through the smartflicks web sight) also he shows hand sharpening and many other things. I think its a great starter video becase hou can do so much with just a couple of basic tools.


All the Best, Keep cutting ,

Samuel

 

[Roki1967]

Hi,

Actually not too worried about the cost of making my own gravers, its the personal achievement of being able to do it thats the challenge. I plan on buying them, and learning how to make them, just like making attachments for my lathe, its the enjoyment of something handcrafted that I strive for. Thanks for the 0-1 direction, we stock many sizes of it, and it will be fun.



Robert

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Nothing wrong at all with making your own gravers. My father used to use some of his old fencing sword blades that had be broken.

What you decide to engrave will dictate how they'll be set up. Jean's tools look as if they are set up more for jewellery and stone setting than general engraving. Depending on what you hope to achieve, most of your tools will be made out of square stock and then sharpened according to what geometry works best for a) the individual engraver and b) the type of cut to be made. For example, shading would be impossible with one of Jean's round bottom tools or a flat graver as they just do not give the correct cut.

Meek's book will help you with graver geometry if you are a mathmatician. Personally I struggled with it because I'm not of that bent. But something like Sam's graver sharpening video is much better if you are more hands-on than academic.

Finally, there is a wealth of knowlege on this forum and people only too willing to share. Ask a question and you will get a myriad of answers which goes to prove there is more than one way of doing things. Find what works for you and don't be affraid to experiment. Good luck.

 

[Roki1967]

Hiya,

Thnaks for all the information.

Robert

 

[qndrgnsdd]

translator

Where do I find this translator and etc.???

 

[Roki1967]

Hello,

Find the document you need, right click anywhere on the page, go down to page info, click on it, and then choose translate document into english.

Robert

 

[Unkl Ian]

Where do I find this translator and etc.???

This will translate text,or complete pages:
http://world.altavista.com/tr

 

[Ron Smith]

Robert, I made many and most of my tools over the years and needle file steel works well providing you use quality files. Tool steels will get you up to snuff for the hard steels of today and many use carbide blanks for this as some of the modern gun steels are very challenging. I made many tools out of Mo-Max, but not the super Mo-Max it is too brittle. We are always searching for better stuff that will suite our purpose. You might be able as you learn to engrave to find one that works better than any other. It will need to be tough as well as hard. For hand engraving, carbide is difficuult. Any microscopic chip out of the point will mess you up with the palm tool, so toughness is essential. The gravermax will cut with about anything providing it will hold an edge, even if the point is damaged. You can't get by with this with a palm tool. If you are going to learn hand methods, you have a great challenge ahead of you. If I can help further let me know. I know it is hard to know what to ask, but that is all tht is required. I don't have much time right now as I am deep into a project and need to keep at it. Hope to have it ready for Reno, but I have a long way to go and a short time to get there. Need to get back to work. I'm not checking my computer much as I don't want to disrupt my focus I am doing it with hammer and chisel and palm tool. It is my first attempt after the loss of the thumb on anything serious. About anything you ask on this forum will be answered promptly............Good luck! .............Ron S