Question: (SOLVED) C-Max & Glensteel for the QC holder?

[vondershred]

Hey y’all,

I’m sure this has been covered multiple times, and I apologize.

I would love to try a c-max or glensteel graver at some point, mainly because the QC gravers don’t have the pre-shaped wedge shape.

I’m a little confused because a video on Youtube by GRS uploaded four years ago has this in the description: “GRS C-Max and GlenSteel preshaped gravers have just gotten easier to use. By adding two flat alignment areas on the shank of the graver, you can now save time and orient them accurately. The set screws on GRS QC Tool Holders will contact the flat spots of the graver, ensuring that the graver is loaded accurately. This will save time sharpening and create less headache when pairing a graver and QC tool holder.” And indeed I can see flat areas on the shank to tighten the QC collet screws onto.

However when I take a look on the GRS website, all the c-max and glensteel gravers have round shanks. And I read on some threads here if you want these gravers to fit in your QC handpiece you have to modify them yourself by grinding them? If this is true I will abandon the idea of using these for now because I don’t want to mess up new $30 gravers. I’m a total beginner so I’m not to keen on experimenting in this domain as of yet. And if not modified, for what types of handpieces are the gravers with round shank made for? I’m clearly missing something…

So confusing. I love that there’s a treasure of knowledge here, but it’s easy to get buried under contradictory information. Are the c-max and glensteel gravers with the flat area on the round shank taken out of the catalogue?

Thanks again guys, have a good day.

Tristan.

 

[dhall]

The issue relates to fitting gravers into handles and sharpening.

Previously, gravers were generously oversize in length, and the part that goes into the handle, the tang, might have been tapered, or not, or tapered to the center of a graver or tapered to the top of the graver, etc. Lots of variables. With the Quick Change collet or tool holder system, it's easy to mount gravers with a pre-shaped tang (QC gravers) into the QC holder and then swap out various shapes of gravers if all of them have a uniform orientation by virtue of a consistently-shaped tang and holding device (QC holder). If your sharpening system also uses the QC holder to hold the graver while sharpening, life is simple and good.

The complication with round graver blanks arises if/when you remove the graver from the QC holder and then go to reinstall the graver back into a QC holder, it's difficult to exactly re-orient the graver in the holder. When you now go to re-sharpen the graver, if not exactly in the same position, you can't just give it a quick touch-up to hone the edge. You'll have to re-grind angles and use multiple grinding wheel grits, etc., all of which takes up a lot more time in order to get back to your perfectly-sharpened graver that only really needed a few seconds of honing.

If you grind a flat on a cylindrical graver blank, approximately in the area where a set screw will hold the tang, then sharpen the graver using all the grits to refine the shape and sharpness, it becomes possible to remove the graver from the QC holder (for whatever reason), reinstall the graver back into the QC holder, and re-sharpen or just touch up the sharpening. It's now possible to do so without re-grinding all the angles.

Don't be intimidated by grinding a flat or two on the back end (tang) of a graver. All the flat has to do is to roughly match the set-screw position(s) of a QC holder. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds; once you establish a flat-ish area for the set screw, it'll be a bit of a challenge to not get it to re-position itself on the flat(s). And, "flat" is used very loosely here. It doesn't need to be a high-precision, super flat, exact thing. You don't need to re-grind the whole tang; just something "flat-ish" as a landing spot for the set screw(s).

Why would you uninstall a graver from a QC holder? Maybe you have 5 QC holders and 5 gravers. Then, you add one more graver to your arsenal and have to use #6, so you swap out one of the others to use its QC holder, and it happens to have a cylindrical tang. You see the issue when you later remove graver # 6 and reinstall the one originally in the QC holder?

I'd imagine many folks keep a graver in a QC holder and never remove it for the life of the graver. Others may swap out gravers fairly regularly. With a large collection of gravers, the price of QC holders can add up, but the time-savings and convenience of the system might tip the scales; you choose.

I just took a peek at the Glensteel and C-Max listings, and many are listed with cylindrical tangs, but there are square graver blanks for both Glensteel and C-Max, and square stock with various shaped angles in Glensteel. The square blank will allow you to re-orient the graver readily, if it's removed from a QC holder.

If possible, call and talk to one of the sales reps and they can fill you in on availability of various shapes of gravers in the different grades of steels. Sometimes it can be a little challenging to suss out some of these niggling detail from a web site.

Best regards,
Doug

 

[AllenClapp]

I suspect that they have not changed the old photos. All new stock that I have ordered in the last couple of years has come with the two flat spots. Rex Pedersen or Greg Gentry may want to chime in.

 

[vondershred]

The issue relates to fitting gravers into handles and sharpening.

Previously, gravers were generously oversize in length, and the part that goes into the handle, the tang, might have been tapered, or not, or tapered to the center of a graver or tapered to the top of the graver, etc. Lots of variables. With the Quick Change collet or tool holder system, it's easy to mount gravers with a pre-shaped tang (QC gravers) into the QC holder and then swap out various shapes of gravers if all of them have a uniform orientation by virtue of a consistently-shaped tang and holding device (QC holder). If your sharpening system also uses the QC holder to hold the graver while sharpening, life is simple and good.

The complication with round graver blanks arises if/when you remove the graver from the QC holder and then go to reinstall the graver back into a QC holder, it's difficult to exactly re-orient the graver in the holder. When you now go to re-sharpen the graver, if not exactly in the same position, you can't just give it a quick touch-up to hone the edge. You'll have to re-grind angles and use multiple grinding wheel grits, etc., all of which takes up a lot more time in order to get back to your perfectly-sharpened graver that only really needed a few seconds of honing.

If you grind a flat on a cylindrical graver blank, approximately in the area where a set screw will hold the tang, then sharpen the graver using all the grits to refine the shape and sharpness, it becomes possible to remove the graver from the QC holder (for whatever reason), reinstall the graver back into the QC holder, and re-sharpen or just touch up the sharpening. It's now possible to do so without re-grinding all the angles.

Don't be intimidated by grinding a flat or two on the back end (tang) of a graver. All the flat has to do is to roughly match the set-screw position(s) of a QC holder. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds; once you establish a flat-ish area for the set screw, it'll be a bit of a challenge to not get it to re-position itself on the flat(s). And, "flat" is used very loosely here. It doesn't need to be a high-precision, super flat, exact thing. You don't need to re-grind the whole tang; just something "flat-ish" as a landing spot for the set screw(s).

Why would you uninstall a graver from a QC holder? Maybe you have 5 QC holders and 5 gravers. Then, you add one more graver to your arsenal and have to use #6, so you swap out one of the others to use its QC holder, and it happens to have a cylindrical tang. You see the issue when you later remove graver # 6 and reinstall the one originally in the QC holder?

I'd imagine many folks keep a graver in a QC holder and never remove it for the life of the graver. Others may swap out gravers fairly regularly. With a large collection of gravers, the price of QC holders can add up, but the time-savings and convenience of the system might tip the scales; you choose.

I just took a peek at the Glensteel and C-Max listings, and many are listed with cylindrical tangs, but there are square graver blanks for both Glensteel and C-Max, and square stock with various shaped angles in Glensteel. The square blank will allow you to re-orient the graver readily, if it's removed from a QC holder.

If possible, call and talk to one of the sales reps and they can fill you in on availability of various shapes of gravers in the different grades of steels. Sometimes it can be a little challenging to suss out some of these niggling detail from a web site.

Best regards,
Doug

Hello Doug!

Oh okay I get it now! Took me a few re-reads. Once a graver is installed into a QC holder it’s not supposed to come out. If you run out of QC collets, you just buy new ones for the gravers that haven’t got their dedicated holder yet. It’s designed this way so sharpening is easier.

Okay thanks so much! So if I understand correctly it doesn’t really matter if the shank of C-max and Glensteel gravers are round? The collet screws will have enough grip on the round shank too? Does it matter in which position you slide and screw it into the collet (for instance the point aligned with one or the other screwhole) for later sharpening purposes?

Thanks again for your time, truly appreciated. Is there any DVD you recommend where this stuff is also covered? Alas I cannot partake at lessons in the GRS training center, I’m not even on the same continent haha.

Cheers,

Tristan.

 

[vondershred]

I suspect that they have not changed the old photos. All new stock that I have ordered in the last couple of years has come with the two flat spots. Rex Pedersen or Greg Gentry may want to chime in.

Hello Allen,

I mailed Greg about this but he has yet to reply. However Doug’s reply makes me think the flat spots are not necessary since you pair a graver with a collet permanently.

In my naiveity I thought QC gravers are for QC collets exclusively hence the flat shank, and C-Max and Glensteel gravers are for handpieces I hadn’t heard of yet. Whoops!

Relieved to hear I can just use my 901 with any type of GRS graver, I was worried I had to purchase another dedicated handpiece…

Cheers Allen,

Tristan.

 

[dhall]

It's a bit less fussing about if you orient all of the QC holders the same way for all of your gravers. Do a "test drive" and try it in a handpiece and then swap it over to your sharpening system. A little analysis will let you choose which combination is easiest for you to use. The most popular size QC holder (for a 1/8" or 3.175 square tang) has two set screws, 135 degrees apart, and an indexing pin. If you use a lot of cylindrical gravers, get the QC holder with the mating size hole (smaller hole than used for square tangs, described above. Using the larger hole QC holder with cylindrical gravers will likely force you to mount the graver eccentric to the mounting hole. Not truly a problem, but another justification for matching the hole in the QC holder to the size of the tang to be held therein, and not removing the graver from the QC holder. Some folks prefer to use a set screw at the top or bottom surface, probably the primary holding screw since it's applying force against a flat surface, and the other set screw is on the diagonal, just to make it more rigid, and the indexing notch should be in the same relative position, too. If choosing to have the primary holding set screw acting against the side of a graver, it is less consistent since not all side surfaces are parallel and perpendicular to the top and bottom of the tang (standard flat, round and onglette gravers exhibit this characteristic). When teaching, I insist all the students mount the gravers the same way. When sharing a sharpening system with multiple students, no one needs to re-position or change alignment on the sharpener, since some systems rely on skillful positioning and re-positioning angle alignments, instead of fixed alignments. Makes it tough for beginners to re-sharpen a graver consistently.

If they're all mounted similarly, positioning them in the sharpening system will leave them always oriented ready to sharpen with fewer adjustments. Trust your observations and logic. Efficiency comes with fewer variables. I don't recall if this granular level of information is in a DVD, but no matter, you've just read it, ha!

Best regards,
Doug

 

[tdelewis]

All my gravers are round or square, Glen steel or Cmax. Before I sharpen them, I grind a flat spot on the shank for the set screw. When I resharpen, they will always be in the correct orientation for the face and heel. I like mostly round ones because grinding the flat spot for the set screw is not as critical as square ones.

 

[vondershred]

Thanks @tdelewis!

I’m curious, what would be the best approach to grind a flat spot on a graver shank and what tools are needed?

Thanks again,

Tristan.

 

[AllenClapp]

Hello Allen,

I mailed Greg about this but he has yet to reply. However Doug’s reply makes me think the flat spots are not necessary since you pair a graver with a collet permanently.

In my naiveity I thought QC gravers are for QC collets exclusively hence the flat shank, and C-Max and Glensteel gravers are for handpieces I hadn’t heard of yet. Whoops!

Relieved to hear I can just use my 901 with any type of GRS graver, I was worried I had to purchase another dedicated handpiece…

Cheers Allen,

Tristan.

You got it. The flat registration planes do not matter when you start making a graver with round stock, except for the extra insurance if your screw ever gets loose. In that case, they help you to align the graver back where it was when you tighten the screw. Where the registration planes become really helpful is on the pre-shaped gravers so that they can be easily and properly aligned as you tighten them down in the collet.

 

[vondershred]

@AllenClapp, @dhall and @tdelewis,

Thanks so much for clearing this up and being so patient with me. I spent my afternoon watching some GRS sharpening videos, all is super clear now. I think I even fully understand how the Powerhone and the fixtures work just by watching those videos, rewind a lil’ when I’m confused. It’s actually pretty straightforward and fool-proof.

However, I don’t have the funds available for such a pricey addition to my tools, nor do I think it’s justified to buy it even if I could, being just a beginner and all.

Thanks again, have a great evening!

Tristan
(P.S.: Changing this thread to “solved”.)