Engraving wwith a Pantagraph

[Rustystud]

About 10 years ago I bought a Taiwan made Jewler's Pantograph. It is a diamond scribe model and I modified it to hold barrels for engraving my Name, chamber, and neck size. It worked much better than my stamp and stamp letters. What I was doing is not even required by law. The local BATF inspector got on to a couple of type 7 FFLs in my area for using similar machines to mark their barrels. Making a long story shorter, Butch Lambert put me in touch with a lady in New York who had a New Hermes GTU engraver with some extras. This engraver is a motorized engraver. I contacted New Hermes and bought a couple of drive belts and the salesman sent me some parts catalogues and a Instruction manual. I did some research and ordered some carbide engraving bits. I set the machine up and began practicing on some old barrels. It have been a learning curve with several variables. I have had some great successes and few dismal failures. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The BATF wants engraving to be at least 1/6" and .003" deep. I have found that I can engrave from .001" to about .010" with 1/8" letters with the best looking lettering about .003"-.007". I have found it is better to polish the barrel before engraving and polish after engraving then bead blasting. Another gunsmith up the road from me bought a small CNC mill with a 4th axis. He is using his laptop computer to run his code. He has about $5,000.00 invested. I have about $2,500.00 invested. It will be interesting to see if I end up going the CNC route due to other uses for the machine.
Nat Lambeth

 

[RandyB]

Nat, I have a New Hermes motorized model H I believe. I went through several different engraving cutters and finally settled on 1/32" ball end mill. I was having a devil of a time getting the depth right until I put a dial indicator on the column. I now take 4 passes each pass .002" deep for final depth of .008". Still have to go slow or I break the cutter. It does look good if you get it right.

 

[Rustystud]

I was using a Carbide 30* single flute cutter with a .020 tip. I switched to a 30* 1/4 round cutter with a .015 tip and the text looks great. I polish the barrel before engraving, engrave, then polish again and the text is very sharp and about .005" deep. Tops and bottoms look good even with the arc of the surface.
Nat Lambeth

 

[kjcpoint]

Mr. Lambert has also been helping me with a New Hermes manual pantograph I just picked up. Clearly has gone out of his way to search his parts and just sent me the cutter assembly that was missing. It is a model TX.

I have used this exact machine a few years back as my mentor owned it. I thought it did a very nice job. Not so good without the cutter.

Kyle

 

[RandyB]

Nat, are you making one pass with that cutter at .005" depth? I wanted be sure I understood before I order one. The ball end mill is obviously very fragile and have been searching for a better way! Thanks, RandyB.

 

[JamesnTN]

Here's something different and looks great on my barrel.


http://www.markingmethods.com/store/pc/home.asp

 

[shortgrass]

Bits & Bits Co. 1-800-972-7081 1/8" 60* carbide cutter w/.007" nose radius works good for me. They can re-sharpen, too.

 

[mudduck]

Ever thought about a laser to engrave. Won't be cheap though. We use one in wood working

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I use a new hermes. Diamond drag mostly but do have the 1 flute rotary option. Id love to check out a mini cnc mill. It looks to me like every one out there is a kit somebody built in a garage one time and who knows how much work itll be to get it working. I wish there was better info out there- ive even seen one with a toolchanger.

 

[jelrod1]

I usually use one of these. Once I used a Mazak HMC. Overkill for the job but I have them. I like the versatility of CNC to do whatever you want easily. I've been using a 60 degree single flute engraving tool by Harvey Tool and like how it's coming out. Using Surfcam for programming.

 

[msalm]

I've got an old Famco P1-2 that does a great job. It's basically a 450lb pantograph milling machine. I cut 7-10 thou deep in one pass with a single lip carbide cutter. I get the cutters from Antares and they seem to do a very good job. Right now I have 60 degree, but prefer the 30 degree cutter, but they are a little more fragile.

 

[bigngreen]

I recently picked up a New Hermes TX pantograph and I'm trying to find a manual and I believe I need some spindle parts, is there any source for parts other than Ebay?
How are you guys holding barrels, I was thinking of making a set of soft jaws for one of the vices that came with it but though I'd ask before reinventing something.

 

[Gundoktr]

Here is how I hold mine, make them out of some 1 1/4" delrin.