Everyone, those of you out there who use liners what face angle do you use? Do you polish or not? Will be cutting copper & silver mostly and new to these critters. TIA
Kent, Try 35,40,or45 degree face angle,polishing is ok try with or without.I finish the face with 1200 grit on the Power Hone. Hope this helps.Still making those smoke pole's,keep up the good work. J.J.
it depends on what you want to do with it. For most scroll shading applications, you need to round the face, so you can roll the graver and still keep the lines without gouging into the metal and being forced to stop. The face angle itslef can be 40-60 whatever makes you happy as long as it round across the cutting edge horisantal to the metal being cut. then pull the graver backwards acrosss diamond impregnated leather to remove burrs adn s moothe the teeth at the cutting edge.
I own about 26 liners but have not really worked fully with them yet since there are other engraving skills I want to master first, and have not been happy with my results with liners. My system is one thing at a time. But I remember this subject coming up before and a member advised Dubbing the cutting edge about the thickness of the lines on the graver. Gave it a try and it did seem to be much easier to control. Kevin Scott
I fully understand what you explained in regard to "round the face, so you can roll the graver and still keep the lines..." but most liners have very shallow groves and rounding the face would wipe out the teeth on each end and thus render the tool useless for any shading effect. The outer teeth would cut somewhat wide gooves and the central teeth would cut normal groves. There would be no uniformity. Or am I missing something?
I haven't tried "rounding' a liner yet but will in the near future. can you possibly post a photo of a rounded liner?
I searched the forums to find the posts I read and tried to quote. I found them on the Lindsay forum. Below is what was posted.
I use liners frequently & this is how I sharpen them. After grinding a face angle of about 45 degrees I then stand the liner straight up (perpendicular) to a stone (or your ceramic disc) and with the lined part of the tool facing left, drag toward yourself, keeping the tool level as you go. This will dub off the front and allows the tool to cut without heading for the bottom. The face can also be given a slight radius followed by the "stropping" outlined above. That will make it a little easier to control in a curve although you can learn to do it the other way too. Start your lines by leaning the tool on one edge and then, as you go, flatten out the tool, adding more lines. That is how you feather the shading in.
It sounds harder than it is & I hope that helps some!
Weldon
Weldon's technique is the same as the one I was taught at Gist Engravers, and I could not have described it better.
__________________
Barry Lee Hands www.barryleehands.c
These posts were from 8/5/09. Kevin Scott
Thanks Kevin. Now I think I understand. I assumed incorrectly the radius was on the bottom where the teeth are.
I have to go to a 1st Cavalry reunion in Minneapolis begining tomorrow but will give it a try when I return on Monday.
Here is how I do it. Only the face is rounded, not the bottom with the lines. Polish the heck out of it. The graver is welded on at an angle to allow for hand clearance. Some people silver solder, some mig weld like I did, and some have a buddy with a laser welder and that is the cat's meow I guess. Hope this helps, Seth
Crazy Horse, I am afraid I have added confusion here again. Don't have much experience with liners but have read alot about them on the forums because I want to learn how to use them.
My understanding is "rounding" and "dubbing" are two different things done for different purposes. The "dubbing" keeps the graver from diving and maybe makes control easier and probably makes the edge stronger.
"rounding" of the liner is done when the liner is used for shading scroll work etc so that all the engraved lines don't all line up and are the same length because that is not how things look in nature. Also "rounding" makes it easier to make a curved cut as in shading scroll work etc.
For lettering with a liner you do not want the liner rounded, but you can
''dub the edge'' for the reasons weldon mentioned in his post in the Lindsay forum.
Hope this clears things up. And remember I am a student, not a skilled engraver so maybe I have things wrong. Kevin Scott
I didn't even think of that since I do have some and many old cheap hand gravers. Cutting up a liner with a diamond saw and putting it on a graver or a length of steel with a angle is just perfect.
Most of the liners I picked up are straight and this is a better way I think of getting the hand up higher. You can get many straight, curved, and anything else out of one liner..