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.

Let's see if C&F can handle a VERY LONG POST:

Quotes pulled from the WOODENFLUTE list of long ago, regarding steel & reaming.

CASEY BURNS - 2000
In a D section reamer (basically turn the taper then cut it in 1/2) this
is a problem but not so much in the 3/4 round reamer. The edge is kept
sharp this way: on the flat cutting surface, I first file off the old
edge, then stone the surface smooth. Then the cutting edge is generated
using a hard steel burnisher held at about 5 degrees from the cutting
surface and burnish the edge. If the reamer is cutting in one spot a
little narrower, I can burnish more in that spot to bring the edge out
further. In extreme cases the metal can be upset by punching it just
inside the edge with a center punch.

Using this method, one gets years of surface out of a 3/4 section
reamer. I usually need to resharpen it after every 10-15 bores - but I
change my reamers faster than they wear out to a D cross section!

There is no "relief" on the diameter of the reamer. It's not necessary.
The burnished edge seems to be all that is necessary to plane the wood.

On flutes, I bore out the joints in one diameter - that being the
minimum required for the reamer to pass through (1/2" is a good size for
larger bored Pratten style middle joints). The reamers I have been
making lately are not piloted, but instead have a cutting edge similar
to that of the gun drills on the end - this makes them more aggressive -
important in a production shop.

In bagpipe chanter bores, however, I will step bore as much as I can -
usually dependent upon what drills are lying around, since these reamers
are a bit more delicate and much more difficult to make.

Just another note on reaming: My method of reaming is to usually set the
lathe belts at the slowest nongeared speed (about 180-240 rpm) and chuck
the reamer in the 3 jawed chuck. I stick a couple of hose clamps in the
middle of the joint to be secured, then attach a Carpenters Woodscrew
clamp over this to have something to hold onto while reaming. Easy on
the hands!

For bagpipes I recenter the bore by turning between centers on the
lathe, then chuck up the blank using a steady rest as well, then ream
from the tailstock end with a reamer held in the toolpost - on the
Myford there is quick change tooling that makes this easy and
convenient.

==========

TERRY McGEE – 2000
[reamer profiles and heat treat issues]

How many uses do you all get out of a reamer before it wears down to
the point that it either cuts undersize or simply won't cut at all (IE
the edge wears in far enough on a 3/4 section that there's no longer
sufficient relief for it to touch the bore)?

Don't know yet!

And on a related note, how many "steps," in addition to the pilot
hole, do you drill in the bore before using the reamer?

I step drill at 1mm increments.

==========

MARK HOZA – 2000
And on a related note, how many "steps," in addition to the pilot
hole, do you drill in the bore before using the reamer?

I drill a 1/2" pilot hole and then ream out the billets. I don't step drill
them. If my reamer is sharp I can ream the billets quite quickly and I
can't see that step drilling would save any time.

I also use hose clamps on the outside, but I hold the billet with gloved
hands while the reamer spins in the chuck. I'm using a metal (Myford)
lathe, by the way.

==========


MARK HOZA – 2000
I have had this same problem, EXACTLY, so will share what I found. It's
terribly frustrating business when your reamer won't cut.

12+ inches is no problem. I use one that is about 17" and it works fine, as
long as I have it sharpened properly.

I find that it doesn't take much to get a reamer to work in smaller
diameters, such as you find at the beginning of your reamer. I rarely have
trouble there. It's about 1/3 up and beyond that which gives me troubles as
the reamer gets dull, or if it is not milled properly to begin with. (I use
the third slowest speed, by the way, as I find that it cuts slightly better,
for me. There might be a good reason for me to use the slowest speed, but
this is what I've been doing.)

I find that it is infinitely better to undercut the cutting edge of the
reamer so that the cutting edge is slightly acute. I only use an angle
grinder to mill out my reamers, so you are ahead of me with a milling
maching, if that is how you mill them out. So, 100% dead straight isn't the
concern, it's that the edge is slightly undercut along the length. I then
file the undercut face to clean up the edge, followed by a fine diamond lap
and then a stone.

When the edge is sharp enough to slice and dice my finger when I slip (as he
says with a band-aid on his finger from finishing up a new reamer today), I
then burnish it up so that there is a slight raise on the cutting edge. If
the face is not undercut I find that I can't get enough of a lip. I think
that the undercut helps you burnish up just a tad more metal. It also works
better even when the reamer is dull, so this isn't the only reason.

Anyway, I'm confident that this will help you. I've spent a number of hours
learning the hard way and I know how frustrating this particular problem can
be.

==========

PAUL JACOBS – 2000
You can make a reamer by turning steel to the shape of the bore and then
cutting away a half or a quarter (as suggested in recent postings)but this
involves removing much metal. All one needs to do is create an edge by
milling a groove and take away some metal to one side of the edge so that
the edge can engage the wood being cut. If you take away some metal through
90 degrees or 180 degrees the effect on the wood being cut is the same
whether the metal removed extends to the centre or is just one or two
millimetres deep to the original circumference. The only disadvantage of
this type of reamer is that there is less space for shavings compared with a
fully quartered or halved reamer so it has to be cleared frequently. The big
advantage is that it balances well if used as a mandrel and rotated at high
speed as relatively little metal has been removed from one side

==========

TERRY McGEE – 2000
I step drill every 1mm on diameter to minimise the work the reamer has to
do. This extends time between sharpenings. I use normal spade bits with
their tits ground off (ouch!) and the flat part ground to a 90 degree
included angle (with appropriate relief). They cut like mad, so it doesn't
take long. I attach the dust collector to the end of the hollow lathe
spindle, so all the swarf and dust goes up the tube.

I also use two reamers for long parts like Prattens body's.

==========

CASEY BURNS – 2000
Steel for Reamer:
I personally find W1 and O1 too hard for reamers most of the time - and
these are a bit more expensive. I recommend something called
Stressproof, which is a .45% carbon steel - this can be found at almost
any steel distrbutor in the yellow pages and comes in a wide variety of
diameters. I do not harden my reamers - to do so would invite warpage.

Instead, the cutting edge is burnished out using a piece of hardened
steel set at about 4-5 degrees to the edge. The act of burnishing
actually hardens the cutting edge just enough to work.

==========

HAMMY HAMILTON – 2000
I have always used silver steel for reamers. It's available, in Ireland at
any rate, in metre long round bars which come in every size from 1mm up to
about 25mm. Its a bit 'sticky' to turn and mill, but I've recently
discovered that a carbide tool, and using good old tallow as a lubricant
works fairly well.

==========

_________________
International Traditional Music Society, Inc.
A non-profit 501c3 charity/educational public benefit corporation
Wooden Flute Obsession CDs (3 volumes, 6 discs, 7 hours, 120 players/tracks)
http://www.worldtrad.org

What I'm seeing as a general work process for various wood turners, as I search on Google, is something like this:

1) Drill pilot hole to mark center of wood, and to guide subsequent drilling.
2) Gun drill undersize to clear most of the bore. Can also stepdrill to approximate tapered bore.
3) Flat reamer (would have 1 or 2 cutting edges) to approximate tapered bore. Looks like a flat piece of stock, like a file with no teeth, with shortest edges angled to cut \_\.
4) Use raised burr on a reamer (2/3 - 3/4 stock, possibly D or U-shaped in cross-section?) to precisely shave to intended bore size. The reamer used at this point is actually removing small amounts of wood, not the entire center of the wood stock. Also less likely to clog if one goes slow, has a groove in the reamer for material to come out, and lubrication, also air to vacuum/blow clear.
5) Sand bore to smooth.

BTW, usually the longest section in a D flute, say a Pratten, is probably about 12-14 inches. So, reamer need not be super long, and I would think there is then room to work on a realatively small lathe.

_________________
International Traditional Music Society, Inc.
A non-profit 501c3 charity/educational public benefit corporation
Wooden Flute Obsession CDs (3 volumes, 6 discs, 7 hours, 120 players/tracks)
http://www.worldtrad.org

That was great--fun to read what everyone was doing with reamers (going back twenty years, no less!). 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.

_________________
Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

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 before sandpaper called a "hook" on their card scrapers.

A card scraper when properly sharpened will lift transparent shavings and leave a mirror finish without grooves or scratch marks. You sharpen a scraper by making a clean edge with files, stones, etc., and then burnishing a "hook" using a very hard, mirror-smooth piece of steel held at a slight angle to the edge.

It seems this would work well on a reamer too: easier to do without slipping on crescent-shaped or 3/4-style profiles than with my two bladed design, but workable if I'm careful.

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

I haven't found Stressproof easier to machine than 01. On my lathe the metal comes off in small chips instead of curls and leaves a much rougher surface. YMMV of course, but in my little shop, turning steel on my little equipment, I preferred the 01.

Oh, and FWIW the Stressproof warped just as much as the 01 when I milled an asymmetrical profile.

Solid feedback--thanks! I have desire to reinvent the wheel. The 01 made a nice reamer and behaved well. Just hard, but I can live with that.

_________________
Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

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 . . .

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!



It's been quite a saga. From purchasing a lathe and mill to designing and making a taper attachment for the lathe, from collecting flute drawings and purchasing actual flutes to designing my own first bore (kind of a generic guess as to what was common in 1750), from cutting tapers and milling reamers that warped to finding this site and trying this or that suggestion, from dream to reality.

Woohoo!

Now on to learning how to make sockets (mortises?) and tenons.

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 and a couple of fingers really don't like it by the time the reamer is all the way through.

Here's my solution:



I haven't tried it yet, but I think this will give me the leverage to ream comfortably.

That's a great solution! I'd suggest being prepared to wrap the round billet in something to reduce slippage. Duck tape might be enough. If you have enough torque and the wood is oily enough you might find that it spins in the holder (ask me how I know this!). Depends upon how much the reamer bites, etc.. You may not need any special measures, but I have to take pretty extraordinary ones to keep my stock from spinning in the holder when I'm reaming. I use a couple of v-blocks clamped on the stock, but I wrap my billets in duct tape and then put hose clamps over the duct tape (which is to both create friction between the wood and hose clamp and protect the billet from being marred by the hose clamps). These are lined up in such a way that the screws on all of the clamps make contact with one side of the v in the block and are held fast. But some of the pieces I'm reaming are rather long and subject to a lot more torque.

_________________
Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

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

I've never tried that, but it might work. I might opt for some very tough rubber material. Even though your holder contacts the entire circumference of the billet, which is very helpful, it is also not very deep (an inch thick?). This is not necessarily a bad thing, because if you create something that can grip it without fail there is more chance that if the reamer gets a good bite it can wrench it from your control. 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! But for short sections of flute with a nice, sharp reamer I bet your holder will do the job, and save your sinews!

_________________
Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

I'm glad you're OK. Sounds painful, and terrifying. When I was in band instrument repair school back in the early 90s I took a couple of machine shop courses taught by a fellow who had seen enough mishaps (he had worked in the tool shop on a Navy vessel) to think it valuable to show us films and photos of what can go wrong around power tools--hair caught in a big drill press (it was a guy with a huge "afro"; you can imagine the rest), long sleeve caught in a big lathe chuck (took the poor man in all the way to the waste; wrapped everything above his belt around the work and spun it several hundred times before a co-worker could hit the off button. Gruesome beyond description.)

It is impossible to pay too much attention when operating machines!