(Context: I’ve been involved in the trophy and engraving industry for around three years.  I make no claim to know it all, or even know a lot.  When I first became involved I searched the Internet looking for information that I’d find useful in helping me understand the industry – I didn’t find much.  This is my small part in hoping that the next person in my shoes can find something useful to them.  If I’ve gotten something wrong, please leave a comment so I can correct it.)

Manual Engraver:

A manual engraver lets you lay out the letters you want to engrave in a tray.  The letters are made up of grooves in brass.  A manual engraver uses a probe that runs through this groove.  Attached, through a series of lever arms, is a diamond tip that repeats anything the probe does on the surface of what you’re engraving.

The process requires you to manually set the pressure that the diamond tip exerts on your engraving surface.  That means you need to keep steady pressure to get a good consistent result.  One trap is that if you aren’t careful the probe can jump out of the groove resulting in the diamond tip also going where it wasn’t intended.  Time for a re-do.

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