Drag Engraving

[Alan CharlestonParticipant @alancharleston78882]

Hi,

I want to engrave a scale onto some brass sheet. A while ago I found a good youtube video which described how to use a spring loaded diamond grindstone dresser to do this. Alas I didn’t save the link and I can’t find it again.

As I’m going to be engraving brass, it strikes me I don’t need a cutter as hard as diamond and a hardened silver steel tool should be OK.

My question is – Should the tip be a cone, or a 4 sided pyramid? I’m assuming the included angle should be 90 degrees.

Regards,

Alan C.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The replacement tungsten tips you can buy are conical, 60 or 90deg depending on what you want the engraving to look like.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

For occasional work at least, and engraving only straight lines, a suitable cutter can be ground from a piece of small-diameter tool-steel, perhaps a broken or worn-out centre-drill.

I’d certainly keep a grinding-wheel dresser only for its intended use.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

The description seems a little garbled … but these might be useful:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004728231734.html

MichaelG.

[Alan CharlestonParticipant @alancharleston78882]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

Nigel – The video which I now can’t find recommended using a wheel dresser because they were much cheaper than the proper diamond cutters.

Michael – Those Aliexpress cutters look interesting. I’ve made the spring loaded holder and I’ll try a hardened silver steel cutter first. If that doesn’t work I’ll look at getting the cutters you provided the link to. They seem cheap enough to try.

Regards,

Alan C.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Alan –

Don’t over-think!

You don’t need all this searching for special cutters for a one-off series of straight lines in a brass plate. You would only need an engraving-cutter in a proper engraving machine to form the numbers as well.

For a drag-cutter, simply grind a piece of tool-steel to resemble an ordinary screw-cutting tool. An old or broken centre-drill or “throw-away” cutter, or stock HHS steel, is suitable material.

For a revolving cutter, when I engraved a flat scale in stainless-steel, I used a worn centre-drill freehand re-ground to a more tapered point, in the milling-machine.

It worked very well, without needing buy anything!

I stamped the numbers, using a flat bar as a guide-fence for the stamps.

 

(Without the proper means I could not guarantee resharpening the drill to restore its original purpose, so it was fine to use for a task like this.)

 

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