Square End Scraper

Scrapers are a type of tool used in wood turning.  Scrapers are held at an angle that is a little less than perpendicular to the surface and scrape material off as their name implies.  They can have any end shape needed and can be reground to change the shape at any time.  Of course constantly changing the shape of the scraper wastes tool life so it is good to have multiple scrapers.  I found myself in need of a large squared ended scraper the other day and decided to try to make one out of an old metal working file.  Files are made of high carbon steel that makes good material for making a scraper.

Of course you can’t just hold the file in your hand while using it at the lathe unless you want to be stabbed by the file tang.  So, the first thing to do is make a handle for it.  I’ve posted before on making a tool handle and I recommend you take a look at it because I’ll be using the same approach here.  If you’d like to see it go here: Tool Handle.

To make the handle I’m going to use a piece of Soft Maple.  Soft is a relative term when it comes to Maple as it is a pretty tough wood.

Once cut into a square piece on the bandsaw on to the lathe it goes to be shaped. Lathe tools have a long handle on them to allow better control of the tool.  This one is about 10.5″ long.

Here’s the shape I came up with based off some of the handles on the tools I’ve previously purchased.  I thought the end of the handle was a little fat and trimmed it down after I took this picture.

The nose of the handle has been turned down to accept a copper ferrule.  An easy way to produce a straight surface is by using a skew chisel to peel the wood away.

Once the handle’s shape was finalized, it was sanded down to 320 grit.  As I did in my post on making a tool handle, I cut off a piece of 3/4″ copper pipe and pressed it on for the ferrule.  Then it is over to the drill press to make a hole for the file’s tang.

Before the file can be used as a scraper the end has to be ground.  Since this is a square nose scrape it just requires grinding the edge straight with a shallow relief angle. 

Here’s the sharpened end viewed from bottom.  I also sharpened the left side of the scraper. 

After this the file and handle were brought together and the handle was oiled.

Here’s a close view of the handle because I think Maple is such a good looking wood.

The scraper functions pretty well though compared to High Speed Steel the High Carbon Steel it is made of needs sharpening more often.  It is also fairly long compared to its thickness so it tends to chatter a lot.   Hopefully, it’ll get me by until I decide to purchase a thicker one.

File Handle

Some of the water oak I brought back earlier has started to crack and split.  Sadly, that means I won’t be able to use it as material for making bowls.  Well, I could fill the cracks but it isn’t worth the trouble.  Still, it doesn’t have to goto the wood pile yet.  It can be used to make tool handles.  Metal files and rasps are usually sold without handles.  Of course they sell handles but where is the fun in buying one.  If you have the tools, it is cheaper to make handles.  You can also shape the handle to fit your hand.

Here’s a piece of the water oak the handle will come out of along with the 17″ long file that the handle will go on.

After splitting and some bandsawing, I’m left with a block for the handle.

Before I can start turning the handle, I need a ferrule.  A ferrule is a metal ring that goes on the front of the handle to keep it from splitting when the handle is driven onto the file tang.   I used a bit of 3/4″ Copper pipe I have around.  Couplings from the hardware store also work well for this purpose.

Now the block is mounted in the lathe and can be roughed out into a round shape.

Once the block has been turned into a cylinder a hole needs to be drilled into one end for the file tang to be inserted into.  From what I’ve read online, take a measurement about halfway up the widest side of the tang to use for the hole size.  The caliper shows a little larger than 3/8″.

I could use the drill press or lathe to make the hole.  I chose to lathe.  To hold the piece, I swapped the chuck back on the head stock and put my Jacobs chuck in the tail stock.  Drilling in this fashion is a little odd the first time you see it because the drill bit doesn’t turn, the piece does.

With the hole drilled, I swap back over to the centers.  The only critical size is the area where the ferrule goes.  The diameter needs to be turned down to about the size of the inside of the ferrule.  You must also have enough depth to put the ferrule on and not have it stick out.  The outside calipers are a convenient way to monitor the diameter.

Now you finally get to make the handle.  Do whatever you want here.  If you’ve got big hands, make a big handle.  Want a place to rest your thumb?  Make one.  Since you’re making it, you aren’t stuck with a preset shape.  Here’s my handle shape roughed out.

Here’s the handle after it has been cleaned up and sanded some.  As you can see, there are cracks in the handle but it doesn’t matter.  I added some rings onto the handle for no real purpose.

I went with the easy way of putting the ferrule on my handle.  Sure, you can tap it on with a hammer as well.

Installing the handle onto the file is easy.  Simply put the handle onto the tang of the file and drive it home with a hammer.  Don’t pound it like crazy but make sure it won’t be coming off soon.

After a little bit more sanding I applied some boiled linseed oil as a finish.  Boiled linseed oil is a great handle finish.  It protects the wood, is easy to apply, and more can be added later if you scratch the surface.    Plus it looks pretty good.

Now I just need about 20 more of these…..

Drill Press Mobile Base

I’ve been planning to make a mobile base for my Clausing 15″ drill press for a while.  I finally got around to doing it.  My previous way of moving it has been a dolly.  The dolly worked but it was cumbersome and a little nerve racking to move the drill press.   The first thing to do was pick out some casters.  I decided I didn’t need top of the line casters and that cheap ones would be fine.  When I think of cheap items, I think of Harbor Freight.  I found some 3″ swivel with brake and fixed casters.  Each caster is rated for 125 lbs so they are fine for my ~300 lb drill press.

After the casters, the next order of business is to figure out what to do with them.  First, I searched online to see what other folks had come up with.  There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for something like this.  With some ideas in mind, I measured the base of the drill press and took several measurements of the casters.  Obviously, the mounting bracket of the caster must fit but you also need to know the height of the casters.  For the swivel casters the size of the circle that it sweeps out is also important.  You want to make sure the caster can swing 360 degrees without hitting anything.  With all of that, I sketched out a rough idea of what I wanted seen below.

I decided to make the area where the drill press sits have 1/4″ clearance on all sides.  I also gave a little extra room for the casters to swivel.  The entire base is constructed with 2″x4″ white pine lumber.  Dimensional lumber’s stated size is the nominal size when the lumber is wet.  Shrinkage due to drying reduces a 2″x4″ to 1.5″x3.5″.  Something to note when building if you are unaware.  It is a simple base that has two 33.5″ long pieces running from front to back which the casters mount to.  Connecting the two long pieces, are four 23″ pieces that the drill press will sit on.  All of the wood will be bolted together with 1/4″-20 x 3.5″ carriage bolts.

I have a lot of scrap 2″x4″ material sitting around, so I was more than happy to have something to use them on.  I quickly cut the wooden pieces to length with my miter saw.

Here’s the pieces cut to length…and some scraps.

Next, I held the casters down and marked where the holes were.  I drilled 1/8″ pilot holes for all of the 1/4″x1″ lag screws I used to hold the casters on.  I took a picture of the drilling but it was blurry so I discarded it.  Just imagine my drill press drilling and you’ll have it.  Below are the two long pieces with the attached casters.

I laid out and marked the edges of the front and back cross braces.  I then clamped one of them at the corners and marked the spots to be drilled.  After drilling, the carriage bolts were pounded through and a washer and nut tightened down on each bolt.  This was repeated for all of the braces.

With all four cross braces installed, it was time to put some simple braces on where the front and back of the drill press’ base would sit.  This is mainly to keep the drill press from possibly walking forward or backward.  As such, they don’t need to be held on as strongly.  To attach them I used the Kreg jig to toenail in some screws. Below is the jig.  It guides a specially shaped drill bit to create a pocket that allows the screw to go diagonally into another piece of wood.

I find that when putting the screw into the pocket hole the wood needs to be supported to keep it moving in the direction opposite of the pocket hole.  The back clamp in the picture stops this movement.  The clamp in the front holds the wood vertically.

With the two stop braces in place the mobile base is finished.

Of course now I have to get the ~300lb heavy, awkward drill press into the base which requires raising the drill press a little over 5″.  I’m sure with a couple extra folks we could have muscled it into place, but it doesn’t have a lot of hand holds on it and is top heavy.  Thus, I decided to lift it using a chain hoist.

Luckily, the entrance to my attic is in the garage where my machines reside.  So, that gives me a way to access the ceiling’s structure.  My house has 2″x4″ truss structures in the attic which aren’t rated for a lot of weight but since I’ve stood on them and it didn’t break I should have no problem using them to lift the drill press.  To provide a lift point, I screwed three 2″x4″ together and laid them across several of the ceiling’s 2″x4″s.  I then wrapped a chain around the 2″x4″ stack and put a chain shackle at the end.  To continue in the tendency to overkill, I then attached a 2 ton chain hoist to the chain.   Here’s what all the Jerry rigging looked like.  In all seriousness, the overkill here is a good thing.  Dropping the drill press would seriously ruin my day and I’d forever kick myself for breaking it.

To keep from mangling the belt guard on the drill press, I removed it.  I then made a couple of double bowlines with some 1/2″ rope and put them around the drill press’ head.  The loops were run through the hoist’s hook and away it went.  The gear reduction in the chain hoist is pretty large so I didn’t even feel the weight of the drill press.  Here’s the “system” loaded with the drill press suspended above the ground.

With the drill press floating, it was a simple process to get the mobile base under it and the drill press lowered back down.  (Note: don’t ever put any part of yourself between something hanging in the air and the ground.)  Below is the finished product.

Mobile bases are great to have under all your tools if you need to move them frequently like I do.  There are some things to think about though.  A base of any kind can raise the tool some.  This can be a good or bad thing.  In the case of my drill press the extra height was welcome but on my tables saw the height change took a while to get used to.  If you’re building a base from steel then you can minimize the height change more than you can with wood.

Type and number of casters are also other things to think about.  Three casters would be stable sitting still but tippy when moving so most mobile bases have four casters.  (Aside: stay away from 3 wheeled engine stands for the same reason.)  For casters, you have the choice of swiveling and fixed.  Both can come with and without brakes.  Brakes can be on the wheel, as mine are, or on both the swivel and wheel.  My drill press’ base has fixed wheels in the back and swivels on the front so it drives like a fork lift.  A more maneuverable option is to put swivel casters on all four corners.   My tablesaw uses a base with four swivel casters with wheel brakes.   This has the drawback that if you don’t have swivel locks the saw will move a little bit in all directions until all of the casters are oriented correctly.  In my case the increased maneuverability is worth it.  I just always lock the wheels and push it in the feed direction to take the slack out of the system.

Another caster issue is the type of bearing for the wheel.  These cheep casters use a steel pin on a plastic hub which will be fine for low usage they’ll see. Other casters have better bearing materials which can include ball bearings.  They’re significantly more expensive though.   You also have a choice in wheel size and material.  A smaller wheel can get stuck in cracks and stopped by objects in the way.  Larger casters will cruise over these things without issue.  Wheel material can be cast iron, steel, a number of plastics, and rubber.  As you can see, there’s a lot to think about when picking your casters.

Kershaw Junk Yard Dog Clip Mod

In my last post I mentioned that I didn’t like the clip on my Kershaw Junk Yard Dog pocket knife.  I decided to do something about that today.

Before I started removing material I needed an idea of what I wanted it to look like.  The easiest way to visualize the changes is to take a picture of the clip and modify it using some photo editing software.   I took a quick picture of the knife and clip to use.

Using your software of choice, I used Gimp, start drawing until you find something you like.   You don’t have to be fancy.  I just scribbled with a black brush.  Here’s what I ended up with.  I removed the side spikes, rounded the edges near the screws, and blunted the tip a little.

Once I was happy with the results I printed the image out to scale and cut it out.  It can now be used as a template to mark up the real clip with a Sharpie.   I looked at the marked up clip and changed it a little more until I was happy.  Shown below is the paper template and marked up clip.

Now it’s time to start removing metal.  You can use files, a belt sander, or a grinder.  I chose to use a belt sander.  It removes material at a good rate but not so quickly that you can get yourself into trouble quickly.  Be sure to go slowly and check your progress out periodically.  You can always take more metal off but you can’t add it back on.  Here’s a shot of the clip with some of the material removed.  Be sure to cool the clip periodically in water so you don’t overheat it.

A little more material removal.

Here’s the clip once I was finished with the belt sander.  Note that I accidentally nicked the top surface of the clip with the side of the belt.  Not to fear, this can be fixed.

Before putting the clip back on the knife, I deburred and smoothed the sides of the clip using some 600 grit sand paper.  Be sure to chamfer, or slightly round over, the edges of the clip so that they aren’t sharp.  Run your finger lightly along all the edges to judge how you’re doing.   Don’t cut yourself.  The edges can be sharp.  Next, I went over the sides and the scratched area with some 2000 grit sandpaper.  The sandpaper removed the scratch until it can just faintly be seen in the right light.   Here’s a pic of the final clip on the knife closed.

Here it is open.  That’s a better looking and much more subdued clip.

Total time for this mod was about 30 minutes.