How do you engrave in Stainless Steel?

eyeeatingfish

eyeeatingfish

Joined
Dec 9, 2003
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I want to get a couple of knives, possibly spydercos or benchmade rescue hoooks, engraved. I went to a trophy shop and they said they engraving might not be so great and their laser etcher wouldnt do stainless steel.
Any sugesstions on how to get a few simple words put into knives? Can jewelers do it for a decent price?
 
I bet the denizens of Shop Talk can help you.
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Are you talking about the blade or bolsters ? A finished hardened blade will have to be etched while a bolster or other non-blade parts ,unhardened, can be engraved.
 
As mete stated, you can have a custom stencil made, and then use one of the many electro-chem etching units available. For the bolsters, again, as mete said, a good graver can do that for you. I'm talking hand graver, not a laser. I'm just starting to "scratch the surface" ;) with my engraving skills, still on brass practice plates. According to the legendary Lynton McKenzie, if it's your bolsters, and they're 300 series stainless, they are a real b**ch !! He, in fact, hated the stuff :). If it's a custom stencil that you need made, PM or email me, I can do that for you. I have never tried electro etching bolsters, but have seen some that were done.IMO conventional engraving looks much, much better on Bolsters.
 
Any jeweler or engraving shop that does trophies and such can put words and names on the blade. The pantograph has a diamond tipped cutter, so the hardened steel is not a problem.I do it all the time.All my Stainless knives are marked on the engraver after final finishing.
Stacy
 
Stacy, do you have a quick pic you could post. Curious as to the looks of the "trophy like engraving" on a blade. I would have never thought to use something like that for your "touchmark" .It's been said before, "There's more than one way to skin a cat" ;)
 
Not great pictures but you get the idea. On the little wire inlay job you can just see the makers mark on the blade and my initials in the silver,too.
 
do you have a mall near you? there is a chain store in some malls called "things remembered." they will engrave your spydie. i have a SS cricket engraved on the SS scale with a rose and the name of my fiancee. it came out nice. it was a birthday gift (her first spydie).
 
electro etch isn't engraving. It's etching. And yes you can engrave a hardened blade with a trophy type intaglio engraver. You must use a diamond stylus. Most jewelry shops have them. Some trophy shops have them. You can indeed etch with a laser. Stainless is no problem. None of these methods however are true engraving. True engraving, is done with a graver. Either, hand graver, grave-max type, or hammer and graver. Called chasing. It is a more deep relief type, and actually removes the metal. Mike
 
The jewler wanted like $70 and the benchmade rescue hooks are only like $25. I have a personal knife i want engraved though.
The trophy shop said their laser cant do it and hand engraving is not sure how great it will turn out.

What is this electro etching?
Ive done glass etching, will anything etch metal that easily?
 
You need to talk to another jeweler. It should run $10-15 for a few words on a bolster or blade (Unless you requested something unusual or done by hand).
Stacy
 
mlovett said:
electro etch isn't engraving. It's etching. And yes you can engrave a hardened blade with a trophy type intaglio engraver. You must use a diamond stylus. Most jewelry shops have them. Some trophy shops have them. You can indeed etch with a laser. Stainless is no problem. None of these methods however are true engraving. True engraving, is done with a graver. Either, hand graver, grave-max type, or hammer and graver. Called chasing. It is a more deep relief type, and actually removes the metal. Mike
Click to expand...

You are correct, that's why they (and I for that matter) call it "etching". As for the "trophy type intaglio engraver with the diamond stylus", would that be what Stacy has been talking about? BTW, Thanks for the pics Stacy ;) :) While you can etch with a laser (many end mills including solid carbide & other tooling is laser marked), not all lasers are powerful enough to etch hardened metals.I "think" eyeeatingfish" was using engrave in a generic sense Mike, I tried to politely & briefly explain different methods used for "marking metals" while waiting for an answer as to what it was he wanted "engraved". Thanks for clearing everything up :thumbup: Eyeeatingfish, electro-etching is what you see so many of us using to put our "Touchmark" (names,animals,etc.) on our Blades with, (some use stamps, some use lasers). You can create stencils from almost any image or text, printing it onto laser printer transparency film and exposing & developing it onto "film" that is used as a multi-use stencil. Really a neat and effective way of transferring a permanent mark onto your workpiece. In response to the glass etching, I'm not sure about the technique you use. I'll bet it is real similar to another method of etching that knifemakers use which is to use a "resist" on the workpiece you are etching onto. A resist can be anything from a tape like stencil to simply wax, which a design is scratched into and then an acid applied to the exposed surface's to etch the design. It is more detailed than that of course (brief description), but is another way of putting a design on metals. IMO, it is not anywhere near the quality and detail a qualified "true engraver" will produce though. "True Engraving", dependant on the quality & detail, can be very expensive.
 
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