Engraving a blade

[AKHammonds]

Question for anyone who engraves on a blade. Do you engrave before heat treating or after?? I would think it would be to hard after heat treating and would be ground away with the decarb if done before heat treating?????
Maybe harden the blade then soften the spine with a torch before engraving ? How do you guys do this????

Thanks
Allen

 

[jfraps]

I think you are probably are talking about decorative engraving, but if you mean engraving your mark or name, I do that with a diamond tipped stylus on a very old "New Hermes" engraving machine after heat treat and finishing almost completely.
If I am file working the backspring or blade on a slipjoint, it would be with diamond needle files after heat treat.
Hopefully some makers who do engrave blades on, say, straight knives, will chime in.

 

[graverdan]

Decorative engraving is typically done before the heat treat process. I have heard though that the knives that are hammond quented are engraveable above the hammond line as this area does not harden or get near as hard as the lower section of the blade. I engrave, but have not engraved the blade sections on knives for this reason. If you have a blade engraved before the hardening process, it will be very important that the person doing the hardening knows his stuff. There are little tricks of the trade that minimize the amount of firescale. Less firescale = less of your engraving will be washed away in the process of removing the firescale. It can be a very risky process, but it is done. Hope that helps.

Best,
Dan

 

[AKHammonds]

What I was thinking about was something like the "Dark Lady" that was posted here a short time back. Maybe engrave the blade and then heat treat in a salt pot, so there is no scale, or so I am told?????

 

[12345678910]

What I was thinking about was something like the "Dark Lady" that was posted here a short time back.

I believe that one is electro- or acid etched and not cut engraved.

The origional poster uses the word etched also

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8049701&postcount=4

Yes, the same image is etched on both sides. If you look at the larger version of the image (by clicking on the image above) you can see he even etched his signature (Andre 2009) into the design on the side shown.

- Greg