Chiff and Fipple Forums

Never becoming complacent around familiar tools is the key. Daily exposure can reduce the sense of danger Indeed. I have a friend who used to make good money changing light bulbs on radio towers in Alaska. Really good money. One day, three hundred feet up a tower in a twenty below zero gale, he rea...

As I may have mentioned earlier in this thread, my method is a bit dangerous and I'm looking for an alternative after that happened to me. I got tangled in it, had some of my clothing involved and was using all my strength to keep from being battered by the thing while I groped for the power switch...

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:I'd suggest being prepared to wrap the round billet in something to reduce slippage. Duck tape might be enough.

What about gluing some leather onto the clamp? Longest billets are 10".

At 63 I suffer with increasing discomfort in my grip due to osteoarthritis. It doesn't matter if I slowly spin the reamer in the lathe while holding the flute blank in my hands or turn the flute blank by hand over a reamer held in a vise. Either way, even when the reamer is cutting well, my thumb an...

It works! I took my time, reamed by hand just to get a feel for how well it cuts, and -- Praise God from whom all blessings flow! -- it shaved a nice smooth taper! https://i.postimg.cc/MGpccQsF/IMG-1550.jpg It's been quite a saga. From purchasing a lathe and mill to designing and making a taper atta...

Every now and then during this saga when the muse strikes I imagine having deep pockets like Yamaha or Conn-Selmer and ordering up a set of hardened, ground, spiral flute reamers from the guys in the tool room. Sigh . . .

I actually want to explore Casey's suggestion of stressproof steel--I just found some and I've never tried it. Having just made my last reamer with 01 tool steel, something a bit easier to machine is quite attractive, especially since I'm due to remake a bunch of my reamers. I haven't found Stressp...

Five-minute reamer burnisher: hardened, polished 1/4" HSS drill rod stuck in a handle I had lying around.

Wonderful! Thank you! My immediate take on all of this is that good reamers have "knife" or "chisel" edge profiles that (1) form an acute angle, and that (2) have a clean, even, and precisely formed "burr," "raised edge," or what cabinet makers in the days bef...

Well, I tried it, and it cut like a charm, albeit rough and too large.

Time to carefully remove the burr without rounding off the edge, and then try (again) to make a clean, sharp, accurate edge that will also cut.

I put the reamer back on the mill and cut the slots .050" deeper. This gave each edge a new, ragged burr and made the cutting wedge angles more acute. In these pictures you can't see the more acute angle but you can see a burr that will cut like a mother bear. At least I think it will. My fear,...

I'm new to all of this and hadn't heard of those email lists. Link? Thanks! Logic would suggest that a reamer will just rub instead of cut unless it presents either a burr or an extremely sharp edge to the wood. That the wood that needs chiseling is concave presents special challenges given that th...

I know nothing of reamers and have no experience but I kind of think you'd want a leading edge to get the cut started, somewhat like the point of a knife. When I use a scraper of a chisel I'm almost always adjusting the angle, to control the depth of cut but also to get the cut started, if the make...

Thanks for the clarifications. Makes sense.

Here are four photos at 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°.

The following photos illustrate as best I can the problem I see with taking a reamer design and making it work in the real world. In this first picture (highly exaggerated to make the idea clear) we see what a dull, rounded edge looks like--the reamer just rubs without any cutting action. https://i....