Engraving depth for finishing

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dakota.potts

New member
I have a friend who has access to a very nice laser engraver which can control the depth of cut to .001" on steel. He agreed to engrave a design on a rifle grip cap for me for a rifle I want to build.

I want to know if I can hot blue over the engraving, or possibly color case harden. If I wanted to do either of these processes, is it possible to do so and preserve the sharp lines in the engraving? What amount of depth is good for the lines to stay sharp without looking chiseled out? I'm thinking a couple of thousandths would do it but I've never finished over engraving. I'll send it in polished condition to not risk removing it through polishing.

I thought about trying to do some type of fill, like silver wire or gold wash, but I think that risks becoming gaudy considering my lack of practice with it.
 
Hot bluing will be the best overall finish and requires the least amount of heat. Color case hardening is likely to warp your cap unless you take special care with it. You could silver plate the cap after the engraving but you may lose a bit of detail. Enameling the piece came to mind but you would lose most of the engraving with that process unless his laser can cut in the enamel finish. I have use a cold bath browning process on frames before and while it leaves all the detail is is a less than beautiful finish. It produces a very low luster finish more like parkerizing. It is great on a combat gun but not so much for a show piece.
 
You can blue or CCH the grip cap. The engraving should be done after the cap is polished and ready for finishing.

Neither bluing, CCh, or plating will have any effect on the depth of the engraving. The first two do not change dimensions. Plating does add a miniscule amount to the surface, but it adds it uniformly inside the cuts as well as on the surface. Therefore-there is no dimensional change.

If your friend's laser will cut steel, the cap can be engraved AFTER CCH or bluing. Plating is best done before engraving.
 
I'm aware that neither process adds any dimension, but I'm curious about contrast once the metal is blued. I want the engraving add to be nicely visible through the bluing (or color hardening if I choose to do that) and not get lost in the darkness of the cap.

Plating would be an option too, but I'm worried that with a black oxide finish and dark walnut stock with black forend tip/recoil pad, the silver plating would be out of place with the rest of the gun. I do like to nitre blue accent parts (screws, bolt stop, things like that) so the color case hardening or the hot blue finish would tie in either of those.

Copper plating looks nice but I don't think it tarnishes well.

The laser will cut steel. It's an industrial laser used to mark parts with patent numbers and other information including etching the information into plastic molds.
 
As far as plating- nickel, silver or gold.
Depth of engraving really doesn't have much to do with visibility with dark finishes-look at lettering on blued guns. It can make more difference on lighter finishes.
 
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