I bought a cheap draw knife on Amazon. I got it flattened and sharpened finally. I like to put my name and date of purchase on my tools.
Do you think I can engrave that info on the draw knife with McEtcher. If so what f&s would you recommend?
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I use mine to mark mild steel and sheet metal all the time. I run at 60ipm with a 0.1" depth/pressure. Beats layout line by hand with a scriber. Usually I’m marking 12" square or 12" x 24". May want to slow it down to 30-40ipm on a smaller part.
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What font do you use. I suppose a single line would be best.
No fonts, just layout lines to mark a cut lines and bend lines. It marks metal really well with one pass.
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Single line might be better depending on etch parameters and material hardness. I get extremely fine detail from a 90 degree MC Etcher on a Shapeoko 3. Detailed enough that contours on block letters down to 0.20 inch high is fine. The only time I switched to a single line font was these small letters in acrylic and I probably could have reduced pressure and kept the block letters. Changes in material and/or material thickness (steel, brass, aluminum, acrylic, polycarbonate), each took a lot of trial and error with different pressure/depth settings until I was happy with the result ( I recommend the trial and error here). I usually go slow at 30 in/min and around 0.05 depth setting. No speed as I don’t spin the engraver. Note that these etchers are spring adjustable so my engraving result at 0.05 inch depth (really 0.05 inch depression of the tool) may be completely different from yours. If your first pass is too light/shallow, just run it again. You will enjoy no spindle/vacuum noise.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Since this is a one of I cannot test it on scrap. I will just try and see what happens. The worst is I use my Dremel engraver if it fails.
I just to mark my territory. Luckily I dont have a long name for marking snow.
Are you sure the cheap draw knife is not scrap? 
Well it remains to be seen if it is scrap. I have a lot of wood to process that was sawn on a saw mill.
I ordered the draw knife from Amazon, first mistake. The knife was power coated even on the knife edge. I started to send it back right out of the box. Instead I stripped the powder coat. I knew as soon as I hit the surface with the paint stripping wheel on my side grinder it was all mine. I started on a diamond course stone and it was very uneven. I eventually took it to my worksharp 3000 to grind it semi smooth. After polishing the back I put it on my Jet slow speed wet grinder with the large knife jig. So after 2 days on and off I got it sharpened.
Long story longer I should have sent it back and bought a better one. Now I have the finest polished turd for $30.00 with 20 hours of labor. Trust your first instincts.
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