Pre- and post-engraving process

[Lionsheart]

Hello fellow engravers,
I'm a beginner with a few questions about the pre- and post-engraving process that I haven't seen clearly answered in tutorials or videos. For context: I mainly engrave on jewelry items—pendants, rings, keychains, and similar objects.

1) Surface preparation
I’ve seen some suggestions to sand the surface up to 600 grit to reduce glare and make layout lines easier to see. But what if the design requires a high-polish finish—do you still engrave on a polished surface? Also, does the surface need to be perfectly prepped beforehand, since polishing after engraving might affect the details?

2) Post-engraving cleanup and finishing
Is it okay to lightly sand or polish the surface after engraving to remove burrs or bring out the shine? If so, how do you avoid softening or blurring the engraved details? What tools or grit levels do you recommend for this stage?

3) Restoring luster over time
Engraved designs often rely on reflected light to really "pop," but metal surfaces can dull with time. Is there a good way to restore that shine—especially inside the engraved cuts? Are there any chemical methods or techniques to clean/polish inside grooves where physical polishing tools can't reach?

Thanks in advance for any tips or insights—really appreciate the knowledge in this community!

 

[mdengraver]

All great questions! Looking forward to the answers as the experts weigh in.

 

[DMM]

I also mostly do jewellery and high finish pieces.

1) Surface preparation
I always engrave on a high finish surface, or occasionally brushed finish, but the method would be the same for both. I normally do the acetone transfer method for text so I don't scratch up the surface, but if I'm finding the surface too reflective, or it's a particularly long engraving and I'm worried about the transfer rubbing off, I'll very lightly scribe the lines in and then put a thin layer of china white over it and rub most of it off, to knock back the reflections. for scrolls I colour in the surface with a blue or red sharpie and then 'scribe' onto the surface with a pencil. it doesn't really scratch the surface but will remove the sharpie allowing you to see the layout. blue is darker and the lines come up lighter on a polished surface, red is better for a rough surface cuz the lines come out dark

2) Post-engraving cleanup and finishing
I polish my gravers with that mirror-grave(?) stuff that steve lindsay sells so they cuts super bright and I try not polish it much at all afterwards. I'll only give the engraving a very light rogue but that's just to slightly smoothen the sharp edges if its something like inside a ring or bangle where the clean cut edges may feel sharp to the skin. Most of the time, like for lockets or whatever, I just have some rogue on a microfiber cloth and give it a rub with that and then steam clean it.
If you're using a particularly wide graver, like a 120, and you sand the surface it'll very noticeably change the shape and width of the engraving, and then round the hell out of your edges when you inevitably have to give it a polish. Try break/cut off any burrs with the graver as you go/before polishing. if youre getting sharp burrs you may need to resharpen or reshape your graver. The engraving should be relatively smooth to the touch with no burrs or sharp edges when you finish before you polish or anything. on jewellery you should aim to have polishing only be needed for making it more comfortable against skin

3) Restoring luster over time
Usually with precious metals, a cleaning in a ultrasonic, a blast with a steam cleaner and then a very light rogue will brighten up engraving. If you're working with something like brass you can stop it from tarnishing in the first place with a super light layer of renaissance wax.

 

[Lionsheart]

I also mostly do jewellery and high finish pieces.

1) Surface preparation
I always engrave on a high finish surface, or occasionally brushed finish, but the method would be the same for both. I normally do the acetone transfer method for text so I don't scratch up the surface, but if I'm finding the surface too reflective, or it's a particularly long engraving and I'm worried about the transfer rubbing off, I'll very lightly scribe the lines in and then put a thin layer of china white over it and rub most of it off, to knock back the reflections. for scrolls I colour in the surface with a blue or red sharpie and then 'scribe' onto the surface with a pencil. it doesn't really scratch the surface but will remove the sharpie allowing you to see the layout. blue is darker and the lines come up lighter on a polished surface, red is better for a rough surface cuz the lines come out dark

2) Post-engraving cleanup and finishing
I polish my gravers with that mirror-grave(?) stuff that steve lindsay sells so they cuts super bright and I try not polish it much at all afterwards. I'll only give the engraving a very light rogue but that's just to slightly smoothen the sharp edges if its something like inside a ring or bangle where the clean cut edges may feel sharp to the skin. Most of the time, like for lockets or whatever, I just have some rogue on a microfiber cloth and give it a rub with that and then steam clean it.
If you're using a particularly wide graver, like a 120, and you sand the surface it'll very noticeably change the shape and width of the engraving, and then round the hell out of your edges when you inevitably have to give it a polish. Try break/cut off any burrs with the graver as you go/before polishing. if youre getting sharp burrs you may need to resharpen or reshape your graver. The engraving should be relatively smooth to the touch with no burrs or sharp edges when you finish before you polish or anything. on jewellery you should aim to have polishing only be needed for making it more comfortable against skin

3) Restoring luster over time
Usually with precious metals, a cleaning in a ultrasonic, a blast with a steam cleaner and then a very light rogue will brighten up engraving. If you're working with something like brass you can stop it from tarnishing in the first place with a super light layer of renaissance wax.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Much appreciated!

 

[unplugged]

Back from vacation, I took another look at engravercafe.

I would like to present my technique for preparing and post-processing engravings :

I create my templates with "GIMP", save them as jpg and print with Canon inkjet printer (droplet size 1picoliter)
on tracing paper with the function "T-shirt transfer foil printing", which automatically prints the motif mirrored.
I dab the piece of jewelry/object with opaque white, fix the cut tracing paper with adhesive film and trace the lines with a rounded needle.
If necessary, I draw with a 0.2 mm lead pencil or “erase” with a fine retouching brush.
Now I use bleached shellac, dissolved in spirit in a nail polish bottle to fix the drawing.
Cleaning after engraving is done with a soft lobule, spirit and water.
However, I usually engrave small to tiny things . . . under a microscope with 10x magnification . . .

Greetings from Germany

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

 

[Lionsheart]

Greeting everyone,
A couple more questions on post-processing I forgot to include:
If you need to do soldering on a piece that has engraved elements, do you solder everything first and then do the engraving?
What if you need to solder an engraved element onto your piece later—how do you remove the oxidation from soldering? Is regular pickling good enough?
Thanks again!