CYLINDRICAL ITEMS

I will cover cylindrical items first, these would usually be tankards, goblets and cups and can be either silver or pewter. I never, use the vulcanized rubber type cones; I found that they flexed too much & caused problems with the engraving. This is more apparent on large cylindrical items like a bowl or a wide cup - say 8" diameter. I had a batch of wooden cones made up by a wood turner 10 years ago, covering a wide variety of sizes and diameters, the cost then was less than $50 and have used them ever since. Some have slots cut in them to accommodate handles on trophies, they all have a recess to allow the cap head fixing to be flush with the top of the cone, useful when the cone inserts into a shallow bowl

Note, this drawing only applies to the Kirba cylindrical attachment

The next best option would be to buy some nylon off cuts or order cut to size, and then have an engineer turn them on a lathe. I never have a problem with scuffing, due to the narrow contact area which normally is on the top lip, and I mount all items directly onto the cone, but you could stick some strips of felt on the contact area of the cone if you feel this is safer. Do not use jiffy foam, this would cause too much movement.

Engravers with standard Newing Hall Base unit/Cylindrical attachments will obviously not require the recess in the cone, as the fixing method comes through from the back, two countersunk self tappers are sufficient

Tightening the cones is just down to experience, tight enough to grip, but not too tight to crush or distort. This would not normally happen to a tankard, the only time this is likely to occur is when the item has a base shaped like a pedestal, this is a very common feature of goblets and cups and can be a problem area, more so on pewter (a relatively soft metal) rather than silver plate. Choosing a cone to fit inside the recess significantly reduces the chances of this happening

Engraving speed can be confusing for the novice engraver, and the following tips will help. When the text size is in the region 2.5mm to 5mm, or detailed graphics in the 30mm - 40mm height range, in my opinion there is no point running the machine faster than 24%, indeed my default setting is 18% with a .06 dwell. The letter size is so small that the machine cannot possibly accelerate fast enough over such a short distance, trying to run at say 50% or more can result in a very jerky action, and the saving in time on an average inscription would only be 10 - 12 seconds on a 3 minute job, not worth putting strain on the stepper motors in my opinion. One thing you must do however is to slow the machine down even more, perhaps as low as 12-15% speed, when the diameter of the product goes beyond 6" or 7". This is because the surface speed of the object rotating increases drastically as the diameter increases. Thus, the action of the cylinder rotating clockwise left to right, whilst the diamond crosses right to left or on a diagonal can cause very poor engraving, even more so if there is play in any of the bearings or the gears of the cylindrical attachment. For this reason I decline to engrave outside diamters of more than 7 1/2 inches

This would be more noticeable on a letter ‘o’ or number ‘0’ - however machines with a direct drive for the cylindrical axis would not have this problem Another useful tip is finding the middle or centre point between handles, important for an aesthetically pleasing layout. Remember cups and tankards are a hand made product, and sometimes the handles are either not exactly opposite, or soldered on at precisely 90 degrees. An easy way to check is to use a workbench or old table, draw two cross hairs on it at 90 degrees with a marker pen at the end of the bench, i.e. alongside two right angle edges. Place the item to be checked in the middle of the intersection, put your head above the item, place the article in the centre as near as you can, then squint down and line up the handles on the lines, finally mark the product accordingly on the second cross hair