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I'm currently working on an electric guitar with fairly intricate inlays that needs completeing within, oh, a month and a half or so (I'm fortunate enough to have the time right now), and I've got the whole main inlay cut, but I'm a bit worried about the engraving part of the whole thing. Right now, it all looks more or less like this (Ivory pearl woman, paua leaves, white MOP roses&'V' logos, pure silver wire for the vine). It's my biggest and baddest inlay to date, and the third one of consequence (and second I'm really happy with) that's more complex than blocks, or a logo'd 'V', plain and simple.

What's got me sweating a little is the engraving. And some engraving HAS to be done. The roses might want a tiny bit of shading, although I'm not sure it's strictly necessary (saw-cut lines, basically. I like the look), but I do have to add facial features (drawn on in pencil f'r now), hair, toes, fingers and a bit of shading to the human figure for it to look 'right':


Thing is, while I've had an engraver for, well, years now, I've never used it. It's an onglette one from StewMac, sitting there in my toolbox. I assume I'll need to sharpen it somehow, and I know I'll need to practice on some scraps first, but does anyone have any tips or hints to share with me? Pitfalls to avoid at all costs? Sharpening/tool holding tips and hints? I may be back when it's all levelled and isntalled with some drawn-on engraving lines to ask some opinions on what needs work.

Hi Mattia,

I like your design; it's going to look great.

I'm only a novice when it comes to inlay, and I have only done one inlay with any engraving. Before I started, the thought of engraving was very intimidating. But now that it's finished, I'm not sure why I was worried about it. I know I'm far from being in the same league as the great inlay artists, but it was not difficult to keep from screwing it up.

Here's what I did; I'm sure there's a much better way. First, I took a very sharp pencil and drew lines on the inlay where I wanted to engrave. Then I picked up the engraver and made some test lines on a scrap piece of pearl. I didn't even put a handle on it --- I held it like a pencil, except that rather than dragging the tip across the line, I pushed the tip gently into the line. It was much more comfortable and natural feeling than when I tried putting on a handle. The only key I learned was not to push so hard that the tip dug into the inlay material; I pushed with just enough pressure to scratch the surface. After five minutes of practicing, I attacked the inlay. It was surprisingly relaxing, compared to the way I tense up when cutting inlay or routing the inlay cavity with a dremel tool. It was by far the most enjoyable part of the inlay process.

Once the lines were etched in, I took an old-fashiond pen-and-ink set (you can get them at Staples for a few bucks) and used the tip with the really pointy tip on the end. Using various colors of ink, I just "drew" along the lines with the pen-and-ink set to fill the engraved lines with ink. When the ink dried, I lightly sanded the whole thing with a high grit paper (probably 1000, but I can't remember for sure) so that the only ink left was the ink in the scratches. I was amazed how good it looked.

A couple of caveats. First, I really have no idea what I'm doing with this engraving stuff, so don't take my guidance as any kind of great wisdom. And I won't say that my engraving is magical or anything --- without a doubt, my engraving will not compare with people who are very good. But what I can say is that for a guy who doesn't know what he's doing, I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.

The second caveat is that if you want to do shading, you may want a different engraver. I didn't include any shading on my engraving (I kept it fairly basic), but I have heard that there are advantages to using the engravers that make multiple parallel lines at once when you are doing shading.

Cheers,
Kelby.

Hi Matia.
That looks great.
Tips-
1) It's really as easy as drawing out your pattern, and then just scrathing away at the pearl until it matches what you drew.

2)Your engraving is only going to be as good as your drawing. Spend time on drawing well, before you engrave at all.

3) Sand down to 220 grit, make sure all the higher grit lines are gone, and start your engraving at that point. trying to draw on any higher sanded grit is a real pain. The pencil lead needs to grab onto something. It's also better to engrave on a 220 sanded pearl, the graver won't slip as easily as say 400 Grit.

4) I draw with a #4 lead drafting pencil on 220 grit sanded. The drawing comes up nice and dark.

5) Start light, and even, with very little pressure. Then work your way deeper depending on how deep you want the cut line to be.

6) Your graver from Stew-Mac is the exact one I use. I have seen many people say you need to sharpen it a certain way, but I leave it as it is, and have done fine, maybe even well. To sharpen the graver I just roll it over some 400 grit paper on both sides, and if you put the point up to your thumbnail and it doesn't move, it's sharp. If it slips keep sanding until it's sharper.

7) Shading can be done with any graver, I use my scribe to make small dots for shade, and Grit Laskin does as well. I also learned how to Engrave from Grit, his book, and talking with him at ASIA the last time around. It's important to know Grit uses other techniques for shading, that are NON-engraving related.
Many times he will blacken out areas with a mix of black NGR stain, and sand it back to shade. It's the only real shading that looks like shade, vs. dots.

8) For just fine lines any ink fill will do.
I sometimes seal my graver cuts with Stew mac thin CA, then sand back over them level. This traps the ink and makes it wear a lot longer. For what Grit does, and what I have tried to emulate, he uses a wax based filler, that fills the wider areas and cut, and he then sands back to 320 as a finish. No CA sealer. You really can't fill wide graved areas with ink, when it dries it shrinks and doesn't leave a big area looking proper.

9) Engraving a thin line between all your cut joints will even out any bad areas, as well as add contrast to the pieces, and make the inlay look more bold and perfectly cut. Many art characters are drawn out that way, it also fools the eye a bit into making everything look even.

10) Last but not least- you have to sand down to fix and mistakes. So you can't really make any. They are almost impossible to remove. Take your time, and enjoy it. Don't stress out. Hold the graver at an angle comfortable to you. I have seen countless people hold graver countless ways, an devery guy says the other one is wrong

E-mail me if you need help. I just spent many hours do a very much detailed engraved piece. The most I have done actually in months.
Pics soon hopefully.

Hope this helps.

Craig Lavin

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Thanks guys!

You've both eased my mind immensely, and I'm sure glad I asked the question; I probably would've polished up to something like 400 or 800 before engraving if I you hadn't pointed that out. I'll get inlaying, and hopefully start the engraving process sometime middle of next week. I'll post the final results when I'm done, and if I run into any weird trouble, I'll come annoy you again.

For shading, I'll try what works (scribe or engraver), but does fine cross-hatching work? Or does that just end up looking silly? I'll try on scrap anyway, I suppose..

[QUOTE=clavin] I have seen many people say you need to sharpen it a certain way, but I leave it as it is, and have done fine, maybe even well.


[/QUOTE]

"maybe even well" !

Candidate for understatement of the century I think!

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Right. Routing's going well, I should have the 'rough fit' cavities routed finished tomorrow morning, then the rest of the afternoon will be spent fine-fitting the inlay pieces, but...I'm suddenly worried about glue choice.

I used epoxy on my first inlay, and CA glues since then (with success), but I'm wondering if CA will hold the silver wire tightly enough. I was thinking medium CA for that, but would epoxy work better? Anyone?

I use CA for all materials at all times.
Larry Robinson does as well I believe. Grit uses epoxy. I sincerely doubt you'll have any problems with the Stew Mac thin type CA.
I use it on metals all the time.
With regards to cross hatching, it doesn't look solid black. If you want that you'll need to fully hollow the area, and fill. That or use a very fine stipling style, and go at it for hours and hours like the scrimshaw guys do. Eventually all the dots will give the appearance of being solid black.

Craig

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Thanks! I've got a sealed bottle of medium and thin CA from StewMac (the last I'll probably ever get from them..pesky shipping restrictions!), so I'll stick with that.

I don't really think I want any areas fully black, just shaded to add a bit of '3-D'. I'll get back here with more questions if I run into any more problems :-)

Mattia:
Store your CA in the refrigerator as it will make it last a lot longer.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com