Hi Jim,
Cutting a straight, even line is definitely one of the hardest
things to do. The slightest error is visible in dim light from across
the room. I saw a show on one of the Discovery channels some time ago
about the US mint in which several engravers were cutting steel
plates used to print money. The engravers doing the borders were
leaning over the metal, holding a loupe in one hand and a push graver
in the other (no air tools, Leonid!) and they were using a
straightedge. I tried it after watching the show and found it
impossible for me to do with the tools I have. I don’t know the
shape of the gravers they were using but I suspect they had a flat
side that ran along a fairly thick straightedge, or they may not even
touch the straightedge at all. If you want to see nice engraving,
look at a dollar bill. Not only do they have to do almost perfect
engraving, they have to do it in reverse image!
My guess Jim, is that the problems you are experiencing are caused
by trying to cut too deeply. This is probably the most common error
of novice engravers. Try to just trace the line with nothing but the
very tip of the point. The curl of metal should be about the size of
a thick hair, maybe just a little thicker. That’s why it’s called a
hairline. Go deeper when you have hairlines figured out and have a
reason to. Look again at a dollar bill. Almost all of the lines are
about the same as those drawn with a super-sharp pencil. They also
have some ink run on the paper making them significantly wider than
the actual cut in the metal used to carry the ink. When they need a
wider line, they use closely spaced multiple parallel cuts.
The trick to cutting straight lines is to lock your wrist so as to
not twist (roll) the graver causing a flanged cut, making a straight
line look curved or wiggly and have wide/narrow variations. The more
flange, the wider the cut. You also must not raise or lower the
graver handle (change the pitch) at all as that will cause the graver
to cut more or less deeply, causing variations in line width; the
deeper you cut, the wider the line. The two together can look very
much like your “two year old’s doodle”, even though the center of the
line cut by the tip of the point may be pretty straight.
This is much more easily said than done, and sounds somewhat
simplistic, but maintaining a constant pitch angle of the graver tip
to the metal with no roll, controlled by a locked wrist is the only
trick to it. Well, that and a perfectly symmetrical graver point. If
your graver belly and/or face has any bias at all, straight lines
will be all but impossible to achieve until you have considerable
skill at graver control as the graver will cut more efficiently on
one side than the other. Perfectly flat metal makes it easier, too.
Lumps and contours, even small ones, make pitch control really,
really hard.
You have probably also found that you can’t see what you have just
cut and can’t judge what you’re doing until you are finished with the
line. Use the curl of metal to judge depth, width and flange. You
will see immediately if the curl starts to move left or right or
straighten out or tighten up. These are all signs that something is
changing. You can tell when you get it right because the curl of
metal will end up hitting the center of the graver face when it makes
a full circle and will be of even thickness, smooth, shiny and
perfectly round. You won’t even have to look at the line, you’ll know
in your heart it’s straight. That will be a happy day!
You might find it easier to start with circles. Use a divider to
layout concentric circles, the largest about 1 inch in diameter the
smallest about 1/16th inch diameter, about 1/32 inch apart for
hairlines, a little more separation for flange cuts. Cut the first
set with as even and thin a hairline as you can manage. Cut the next
set with a flanged cut to the outside, the third with an inside
flange. The flange is cut using a slightly twisted wrist causing one
side of the cut to be more vertical and the other side to be closer
to level. This roll angle in reality is probably only about 10
degrees. The objective of this exercise is to keep the lines as even
in width and depth as possible and the circles as close to each
other and as perfectly round as you can make them. It can take years
to perfect these exercises, but once you have them anywhere close to
down, straight lines will be much easier to master.
It is the combination of hairlines and flanged cuts that makes hand
engraving the beautiful art form that it is. It is also the
knowledge of how they interact, where and how they should be used and
control of the graver to create these components that makes it such a
difficult and time consuming skill to master. It’s similar to chess
in that the rules and moves are easy to master, the nuances in
strategy are something else all together.
Dave Phelps
(Yes that’s a website down there. Finally got it up and running, not
finished by a long shot though. Thanks to all for the encouragement)
precisionplatinumjewelry.com
