Precision sharpening and polishing of these custom gravers/qc

[HammerTitanGuy]

Hello everyone,

I have gone through the sharpening forum but would appreciate any inputs on how to go about this;
I recently purchased a second hand pneumatic engraving machine. Clearly it is a clone but that is the best I could do with the finances/tools I have in my country.

The gravers are a little over 2.3mm in diameter and are HSS. And the QC collet diameter is 4.5mm. It wont work with any GRS system or Lindsay templates.

I am trying to achieve a mirror polish for bright cutting on silver. I have access to lapidary equipment and have ordered the GRS yellow wheel for mirror polish.

Any guidance on how to deal with this specific problem would be appreciated. I have tried to sharpen using hand but getting the heels right on these tiny gravers has been a big failure.

Thank you for your time.

 

[mtlctr]

I sharpen the face first, jab it in wood to remove the burr, for the heel I use fine ceramic stone & strop on hard leather loaded with Tripoli or other polishing compound. I use these in Belgium style steel handles. I do this sharpening by hand. Good luck

 

[monk]

check the tip section on the forum. also check youtube for videos. for a newbie sharpening can be a real challenge without some sort of "system". repeatable geometry is a must for decent work. hit or miss geometry usually gives hit or miss results.

 

[mitch]

Keep in mind you also need a polished transition from the base of the heel to the graver shank. If the face and heel are nice n shiny, but the trailing edge of the heel meets at a rough edge with an unpolished shank your cuts may have been momentarily bright then get wrecked. The trailing edge of the heel needs polished and rounded a bit.

 

[mtlctr]

I been sharpening by hand since the 90’s .I also have a background in machining . Lynton McKenzie shows his method in a video. I basically use his example. I know my sharpening is correct because the tool runs straight, stays sharp a long time. As Lynton said optical flats are not needed to produce good work. Of Course there is no replacement for practice.

 

[papart1]

ah ........this sharpening situation...............I've been doing it since 2015 and am still learning. Actually one finds using a scope to examine all the intersections after polish helps a lot. Rob

 

[DaveAtWeirs]

I've used the Lindsay templates to sharpen carbide tipped burrs into gravers, they're about the same diameter as the blanks you have. The trick for getting them *sort of* repeatable is to put a small flat section at the back of the blank, opposite where there thumbscrew would press into them so that the flat ends up against the side metal of the holder that goes into the plastic template. The actual cutting faces will end up slightly off center to the blank but they'll be centered when they go into the graver.
The main problem I've found with them is that you occasionally have to do an almost full re-shaping when you can't get the damn thing to line up the same as you had it before.

 

[monk]

I been sharpening by hand since the 90’s .I also have a background in machining . Lynton McKenzie shows his method in a video. I basically use his example. I know my sharpening is correct because the tool runs straight, stays sharp a long time. As Lynton said optical flats are not needed to produce good work. Of Course there is no replacement for practice.

mtlctr got it right. if one has the will the skill will come about. all the ngravers of old had no system other than what they cobbled up at their bench.

 

[papart1]

I always.......with the Lindsays put a well defined flat on the top to index to. Also course grind allows to better orientate when cutting. parallel with the surface. I use rounds pretty much all the time