Practice steel

[rsharrard]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and engraving, although I do have set of 6 gravers that were made for me back around 1973 in the Philippines, out of leaf spring steel, held up pretty well for the short time I used them to engrave all my friends Zippos ... Just ordered a PC Classic for Christmas and I can't wait to get started. My question is with these power assist gravers, how critical is the material being used to practice with. I saw a post that I think Steve made about a place that you can order 1018 cold roll steal from. I can get all the 1018 I want from our local (rural) dealer but it is hot rolled and I was wondering if that twill make much difference.

Got my vise today and have set up my drill press stand...so it won't be too much longer. Look forward to being an active member of the forum. Robin

[me2cyclops]

you will need to grind the mill scale off and sand smooth.
if you have a belt grinder it only takes a couple min to do

[silvermon]

If you like to engrave steel, Starrett makes a low carbon steel that is really nice to engrave. You'll have to mail order it from a machine shop supplier, like Rutland.