Engraving question

[Eric Krewson]

I have a friend who makes pens, very fancy pens, I knew he was a craftsman but had no idea of how good he was until he decided to learn engraving.

This is only a month or so after he bought his tools.



Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to practice on my iron mounted fowler, he was all in. Then I remembered that I have never done an iron mounted gun with steel as hard af the furniture on this fowler. It is almost as hard as a frizzen, I could grind it but it didn't file worth a hoot.

Can steel this hard be engraved without ruining the gravers?

[jerrywh]

 Are the steel mounts cast. If so it is unlikely that they are too hard to engrave.  The engraver might need carbide engravers. If you can file it at all it can be engraved if the engraver knows  how.

[Mauser06]

My first project used investment cast steel.   It was similar to what you described.  It was TOUGH stuff.  I actually couldn't get rid of the casting lines.  I could have used a grinder...but then I had grinder marks....I got them the best I could but can still see some lol.    I didn't have good files at the time either.....but it sure seemed HARD. 

[Eric Krewson]

I couldn't file this stuff, I ground off the casting lines and sprues and finished everything off with different grits of sandpaper, it took a long time. I am pretty sure I tred to anneal this buttpalte but it didn't soften it.


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Much, much later;

[Mauser06]

TOTW castings?  I think that's where mine came from.   



I did a Mark Lee hot blue....(it was a Frankenstein project) and it took that real nice. 

[WadePatton]

Slightly off topic, but I'm very curious: Why on earth would anyone cast goods that are normally filed/engraved/hand-finished out of such difficult to work alloy?  Why would a vendor stock it?  Surely it sours the buying market for such. Makes no sense to me at all. 

[smart dog]

Hi,
In my experience some modern cast steel hardware is too hard to file as purchased.  I found they had to be annealed at about 1500 degrees for at least 30 minutes and let cool in the oven.  Of course somebody will write, "I bought cast steel castings and they were fine" and so have I but not all, and those have to be annealed.

dave 

[davec2]

And if you don't have an oven like that, I have just thrown the parts in my fireplace with a good hardwood fire going and then fished them out of the ashes some time the next day.  In my case I had a cast trigger and trigger housing that were hard enough that they could not be files or drilled.  Rather that throw them out, I tried the fireplace trick I heard about from someone on this board.  Worked like a champ.

[WadePatton]

I've only filed out castings from two sources, John Anderson and Tip Curtis and they were perfectly workable.   

How do I know where to avoid these that require annealing? 

[Acer Saccharum]

I'm gonna guess it's just luck when you get workable or hard castings. They are possibly a 4130 or 4140 alloy, as that's what a lot of the casting houses run. How quickly they are chilled after casting may determine whether they are soft or hard.

The campfire/woodstove trick works great to soften castings. (also for annealing frizzens)

[jerrywh]

In my opinion Davec2 and Acer are both right.  The caster was probably running a high carbon steel at the time and then quenched them when they were still pretty hot. At any rate annealing them like Davec2 said will surely work.

[Eric Krewson]

My castings were from TOW, I should have asked about the hardness here when I built my fowler, the answers here would have saved me a lot of grief.

[Gunnermike]

I have a friend who makes pens, very fancy pens, I knew he was a craftsman but had no idea of how good he was until he decided to learn engraving.

This is only a month or so after he bought his tools.



Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to practice on my iron mounted fowler, he was all in. Then I remembered that I have never done an iron mounted gun with steel as hard af the furniture on this fowler. It is almost as hard as a frizzen, I could grind it but it didn't file worth a hoot.

Can steel this hard be engraved without ruining the gravers?

I don't know Eric, but if I were you I'd be carefully taking off those titanium pieces and building a nice fire in the fireplace.  That friend of yours has real talent!  That practice card he did is amazing. 
Mike

[SingleMalt]

I'd wager that a fire built with hardwood charcoal in a BBQ pit would work when the weather's too warm for an indoor fire.

[smokepole45cal]

I came across this problem after taking a couple of engraving classes. In the class is they only have you working on mild Steel & mild brass practice plates that are flat. Real-world engraving involves unpredictable metal and knowing how to deal with it. Lock plates are belligerent for example.

Don't worry about ruining gravers because you can just resharpen them. Talk to Steve Lindsay and get his "carbalt" gravers and also put a steeper angle on your graver tips and don't use the 90-degree gravers - 110 minimum!