How to do Engine Turning JEWELING Tips  

I am 72, I watched my dad do this when I was 10 years old. That was 1958. He used valve grinding compound. First he turned a wood dowel. He did this process on heat treated steel by hand on the drill press. My dad was a master at this. He made an angle plate with tapped holes. It was beautiful. I used to come home from school and just stare at it in the sunlight. I retired seven years ago after being self employed for 31 years with my own cnc, fab and laser cutting shop. I have not seen a RU-vid video yet that does it as precision freehand like my dad. Sorry guys.

I would have fought and fought trying to keep a consistent amount of compound on the tool, and never thought to just apply the compound to the material. Thanks for sharing the idea!

What an absolute joy watching and listening to this group of old school craftsman/friends!👏 Stay well boys!

Sometimes just doing the opposite of what you think is 'right' works beautifully. Thanks for a terrifically simple technique.

Probably the most notable example of jewelling is on the engine cowling on the Spirit of St. Louis.

My uncle Neil made a knife for my grandpap when he joined the Navy in WW2. Neil jeweled the blade. The knife has plenty of patina, but still shows it's jeweling.

Always a joy to watch your videos.

My father was stationed at a small arms repair factory in Germany during the occupation. He was an MP. He befriended the owner of the factory(really more of a small machine shop than a factory) and bought his Luger. It had been "fabricobbled" together and machined to have some smoother curves - and the trigger itself had been jeweled. I've still got that Luger - and the receipt that came with it! It sure was some small little circles. I figured they had used some kind of dental tool or something to do it - with one of those pastes you showed. It was nice to see you guys having fun in the shop.

I think I laughed even harder the second time seeing Palmer. Sure was fun meeting Palmer and Wayne, great guys.

Always enjoy your videos!!! You have helped so many folks learn so much!!! THANK YOU!

I've been wanting to try this, now I know how to do it! Thanks Mr.Pete, and Mr.Moynihan !

Nice to see a couple of guys having some fun in the shop.

Great job fellas! I think I’ll give it a try on my 1959 Apache! Thanks for sharing the knowledge! Very much appreciated!

Great work, excellent idea to keep the tool from dulling

I love this look, on everything from car dashboards to watchfaces. Thanks for showing how its done!

Very nice, thanks to both Mr. Pete and Mr. Palmer for sharing this! Looks great! I'm going to try that one out. I miss the original 3 in 1 oil cans, the plastic garbage today with the worthless uncontrollable plastic straws for "spouts" are horrible.

Rotary scraping ! I want to do the frames of a Murray’s engine when I eventually get around to building it . It is use on rifle bolts to give a silky smooth action , the minute scratches hold the oil and make that bolt glide smooth as silk .

Always loved engine turning. Thanks.

I never knew what this was called and I wanted to know how to make this for so many years. Thank you.

Never thought of doing it like that, tried this a bit with scotchbrite on aloominum which worked OK but didn't know how one would do it on steel - great method!

A very smart idea wonderfully applied. Thanks for sharing!!

Very neat. Good video & once again it was a great meet & greet.

A great new thing to learn. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thanks guys!! That’s great. I plan on using this on my roadster pickup!

Thank You ! I always wondered how that is done. My vintage sprint car has a jeweled dash. Looks great with those old Stewart Warners.

Another example of, "I know how engine turning works, I dont need to watch this..." *pulls out the coffee can...* ... ... .. . You beautiful bastards...

I've been doing this for years & I found the Cratex sticks work very well & they come in many sizes. They are chucked up in the drill press like a drill bit. For the best appearance the spacing is very important & must be uniform to achieve the best results. I've done it on brass, copper, aluminum & steel with great results. You want to practice on scrap material until you get used to the process.

A video worth watching. Respect...

Have wondered since I was a boy, and being fascinated with the dash on my Fathers 1937 Cord, how this was done. So glad you put this up.

Thanks! I always wondered how that was done! I knew it was called "engine turning" but had no idea what the term ment. Now i do! ( I have a 1962 Ford Galaxie with a strip of aluminum across the dash that is engine turned. ) Thanks for all the great videos!

Great video, it looks like you guys had a lot of fun.

fantastic video, mr. pete - thank you!

Mr Pete I have been out of school for 40 years .I have always said "I learned way more in shop class to help me in my life than any other classes in school" I sure would have liked to have a teacher like yourself back then. However I am now in your class.And thank you so very much for what you and your friends keep doing ,Thank you. Now you just need to keep doing it for 30 more years.

Enjoyed this video! Thanks for the info. Going to get my drill press out an have at it on some old brass cymbals I have laying around to see if it changes the sounds quality.

Thanks for the wisdom ! I am resurrecting a 1940 Buick Century with the engine turned dash panels

Palmer is quite a creative fellow... On all counts... ;) Linberg's plane the "Spirit of Saint Louis" the first part of the fuselage and cowling was decorated that way, that made for a real original looking plane...

Great demo! I added some jeweling to the aluminum bottom plate of my 3D printer, it does a nice job of hiding scratches.

I knew what it was, but haven't ever spent the time to figure out how to do it in a good way. Thanks for showing us! Will have to save the tip in my back pocket until I do a project that is worthy

Hi Mr Pete, Here in the U.K. We call this surface finish Purlidge, thanks for all the very interesting videos you have uploaded over the years, from Coventry in the U.K.

Thank you very much. I am going to make my own dash panels now.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun. Thanks

Great video! One of the best things about your channel (in my opinion) is that you cover nearly all aspects of shop work. The breadth of your knowledge and ability is impressive - thank you *so much* for sharing with us.

I was just thinking this method might work with a valve cutting abrasive, spread evenly over the surface,, great video and inspiration and another great idea i get to stick in my mental tool box

Thanks fellers! Very informative! Planning on using this method on some guitar parts! Cheers!

Great video thank you for sharing 😀

Nice demo. Palmer is a great guy...ok, Randy, too. Fun seeing you guys do a video together.

Always wondered how that was done, never realized it could be that simple. Seventy-Three and still learning !!!

Great vid 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 now I'm going to do some turning on a few things Fantastic tips it's simple and it works👍🏻👍🏻

I've always liked that look. Have to give it a try. Looks like some grabass going on!

Great video!!! thank you. Looking forward to more!!

In watchmaking this process is called perlage, and it is mostly applied in circular patterns on watch movements. . General rule of thumb, advance half a diameter at a time in either direction

I remember a very long time ago doing that with a pencil eraser. It was the in thing among metal types I think in the 70's and before for decorating small items like lighters and such.

Thank You very interesting, have a few projects I would like to try this on. Great video!

I guess grinding dust might also work for this kind of job - if you didn't want to buy any grinding compound and were sick of having to throw all that dust in the trash can... Might give it a try if I ever need to do some engine turning, thanks for this brilliant tip!

this looks fantastic on a small scale with watch movements. same idea but much much smaller

My dad was a NAPA jobber for 40 years. I stocked many a yellow jar of Balkamp valve grinding compound, but my own personal jar somehow vanished. Now I know why. Palmer drove over one night and took it! I’ll be watching next time you cross I-35!

Whoa...you dudes are having way too much fun...I like the idea of using a yard stick to get the spacing uniform!!!

I did this with a small polishing wheel for a pencil grinder with medium clover compound on a Bridgeport with ez trak. It turned out awesome

I often use pencil erasers chucked up in a drill press with valve grinding compound slathered on my part. Works great.

I have a 1955 Buick w/ aluminum dashboard trim and so dull that I tried polishing and lost a lot of my swirl but after seeing this video I’m so gonna try to do this. 👍🏽

I’ve played around a bit trying that. I used a pencil stub chucked eraser down in the drill press. Worked pretty good.

Did a stainless island top, used coconut oil, melted, poured, and silicon carbide blasting powder, just fit in my drill press. Oak "tool bit", lol, came out amazing. Thank you.

In the 1950s, I had a neighbor who had his MG-TC modified with a engine turned, stainless steel firewall. That, along with a figured walnut instrument panel, made that machine a real beauty.

Think I will make a spring loaded pad to do this in my CNC- ideal way to do such a repetitive task.

That really is a nice looking finish, I had forgotten all about this technique I like the Idea of placing the abrasive on the surface instead of using sanding disks and the like - Thanks for posting and as always Two Thumbs Up Sir!!! or should I say Sir's? lol

Awesome fellas. Thank you. Dad used a wire wheel, I like this idea. Hope you all enjoyed a nice steak meal after showing the how.

Great demo, Thanks

This is interesting. When I think of "engine turning," I'm reminded of Charles Lindberg's airplane, "The Spirit of St. Louis." Its cowling had this distinctive and beautiful treatment. I don't have many applications for this but now know how to do it with comon abrasives and tools. I think equal spacing of the swirls (vertically and horizontally) gives the best pattern.

The old gezzers always know the best 😁😁 great job guys 😁😁🤘🤘🤘

Hi Lyle just an FYI the jeweking on bolts and other parts of firearms is not only for decorative but also for maintaining a light layer of oil in the scratches to help prevent rust and lubricate sliding parts. Similar to scaping on machinery.

Learned a new thing. On a side note, what a great get together. I wonder how much mischief they got into.

Oh man. something else I wanna try. Cool stuff.

I always liked this but never knew what it was called or how it was done. Thanks for the video, teacher!

I use delrin and coarse lapping compound . Put round delrin in drill press and apply abrasive

cool stuff, thanks for sharing

Great video mrpete.

Looks much better than the fake stuff. Thanks for the video!

Good job!

The Pontiac Trans Am from 1970 to 1981 have the true engine turned dash bezel. Im very picky doing it. I also polish the aluminum to a mirrored finish before the turning. And use valve lap .

Will darn-it, now I want to turn our CJ 5 jeep dash,,,thx for sharing, Bear

I remember my older brother doing this to the dash of his Studebaker. Must have been around 1960 (I would have been around 8 and he'd have been about 25. I didn't get to see it done but afterwards it looked too perfect to have been done by hand. I was amazed. I remember him planing to use something like a pink pearl eraser maybe 1/2" in diam. Want consistency? Just change out the "tool" on a regular basis like maybe end of every row.

I love the turning work on the Craftsman, King Sealy power tools.

I’ve never done engine turning, but visually it resembles flaking and may hold lubrication well and could be done against a stop for level control. Could be used to lower high spots after a component has been in service sufficiently long. Just a WAG. I’ve always wondered how this was done. Thanks for sharing. More likely it was just used to disguise a scratched dashboard surface.

This used to be done on guns for oil retention as the light scratching holds oil better.Jeweling pearling.Its used on watches.

I never thought about using the rulers and the wooden dowel with abrasive powder. Great simple ideas. One item that wasn't mentioned is you cannot (easily) backtrack because the pattern overlaps in a certain way. If you have to backtrack to redo a circle, the second application will most likely not match the previous circles. You may have to start over or scrap the project. Try as hard as possible to get it right from the get-go! Practice, practice, practice! Also, I start with half circles along the initial edge and many lines will end, and/or start, in half circles too.

My shop teacher showed me trick. He'd use a discarded piece of wire rope or cable and put it in a piece of copper tubing flush it on one end and solder it now he bandsawed the other end square and chucked the tube end in the press and went to town and we used grease pencils to make a real consistent pattern and he would spray a mist of lithium and then sprinkle with iron powder and when we got done it looked like an automated machine did it!!! I also use a spot weld drill bit with the center almost completely gone and that worked great on small dia. circles and you can use compound with them too, it comes out really uniform! iv'e seen a guy use a hockey puck cutout at low r.p.m. with flitz compound and it looked really sharp!! Oh well! take care Mr. pete

This was great you should gave so many more likes guys .. you’re awesome!

Thanks for sharing guys...

It wasn't used just for decoration. One of its purposes was to retain preservatives like oil or wax on the surface of metal to prevent oxidation and to provide lubrication retention. This is why you see it on the ways of lathes and milling machines.

THANK YOU...for sharing.

I learned how to do this at a knife shop i worked at for awile ...they called it "fish scailing" and also have heard of it refered to as dragon scail.

I worked for Diebold Inc for 36 years; between the late 1800s all the way up to the early 1950s this was a common finish on safe deposit box doors and the backside of vault doors. At the time both SD Boxes and VD rear doors were plated with nickel and the finish was referred to as "Jiggered Nickel"

It is alleged by firearms enthusiasts that jeweling the bolt is desirable for lubrication purposes, but to my mind jeweling takes me back to the 1950's and Sears Craftsman tools like a table saw front panel. ☺

Something I never gave a thought but who knows, I might just do that on a project in the future.

I have used engine turning to aid in holding oil between two sliding surfaces.

Enjoyed the Synergy

Nice one guys

Jewelling is used in fire arms for holding oil and improving lubrication

You guys are having too much fun!

Interesting, thank you. The early Bugatti dash panels were mostly done free hand, and if you look carefully, you'll notice the imperfections.