Hand engraving

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Hand Engraving in metalworking is the act of carving decorative or functional grooves into a substrate, usually a metal plate, using hand tools such as small chisels called burin or gravers. For the use of essentially the same process in printmaking and printing, and the overall history, see engraving.

Each graver is different and has its own use. There are round gravers which make round cuts, and 90 degree gravers which make right angle cuts, just to name a few. These gravers have very small cutting points; some cut lines as small as 1 mm wide. A 3 mm wide line is a huge cut for a hand engraver, and an average size cut would be slightly larger than the period in normal typeset text.

Hand engraving is used to personalize or embellish jewelry, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers.