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Old 08-26-2006, 05:43 PM
Allan Allan is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Baltimore. MD
Posts: 103
Default Re: Push graver vs Palm Control Airgraver

There is one thing that I wanted to emphasize that I forgot to put in my post. There may be a perception that with the airgraver it is a little harder to make fine short lines because of the power behind the tool. I heard that from a friend of mine who I finally convinced to buy an airgraver.

In fact the opposite is true. You have much more control with an airgraver than you could possibly have with a traditional graver, especially when matched with a microscope. Today I was engraving an inscription with letters of less than one half millimeter, or centimeter (my brain is freezing on which is smaller). Because of the amount of control you can literally start and even more importantly stop at precise points. The lettering came out very precise and fairly deep on one pass, and with a small return squaring cut at the end of intial cut it was very clean and kind of impressive.

You can't do that kind of work with a traditional graver and a an optivisor. I've tried, and I know some incredibly great jewelry engravers who have tried and it just can't be done, at least not to the level of precision I was able to acheive today. And you can't do it with a traditional graver and a microscope either. You need a microscope and an airgraver.

Allan
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