Some burnishers I made

Dominic Greco

Member
Messages
149
Location
Bucks County PA
Hi Gang,
A week or so back I posted a question on another forum regarding some scrap steel I had come across and was planning to use as scraper stock . During the discussion it was suggested to me that I should use a harder burnisher, one that is also polished.

At this point enter Harry. A fellow wood worker who happened to have some hardened piston rods laying about. He kindly offered them to me because he didn't have the time to make burnishers out of them. I accepted his generous offer and promised to save one of them for him.

Several days ago these hardened steel piston rods arrived in the mail and I decided that I would make new handles for them right away. I needed a break from my ongoing projects. So I selected some Ash and Walnut from the scrap bin. I used 1/2" copper pipe for the ferrules. I was surprised how quickly the process went. I managed to rough the blanks, drill the holes, mount the ferrules and turn all the handles all in about 1 1/2 hours. That includes giving them several coats of BLO allowing them to dry.

I the chucked the steel rods into my lathe and sanded them all the way up to 2000 grit. You could see your reflection in them once I was done. After that I glued them into the handles (using thick CA glue) and buffed the completed burnishers using a Beall Buffing System.

burnishers1.jpg


Like I said, one of these is going back to Harry, and I'm keeping one. The other two will be sent to two other deserving (fledgling) wood workers.
 
Well, the gent who gave them to me just informed me that they are valve stem rods from a 4 cylinder Jeep. Oh well.:doh:
Yep, that is the usual item used to make burnishers, I guess they just lop off the valve heads.

Valve stems... That's what I thought they are. Turned wrenches for an awful long time but never saw con rods like those!:D Tools look great and a good way to recycle too.;)

Conrods, yeah, they look a WHOLE lot different, and would needs some SERIOUS time polishing to make them smooth :D

I was thinking more the long straight rods that went from the camshaft to the valve rockers in the older NON overhead cam motors, but maybe they are not hardened:dunno: I know they have a hole in them for oil to the rocker arm too....?

No matter where the steel came from those are very nice burnishers! :thumb:
 
Not to sound like a complete rookie here or anything :rofl: but is the only purpose of a burnisher to roll a burred edge onto scrapers? Sorry for the dumb question, never knew of a burnisher before :doh:
 
Rolling an edge

Not to sound like a complete rookie here or anything :rofl: but is the only purpose of a burnisher to roll a burred edge onto scrapers? Sorry for the dumb question, never knew of a burnisher before :doh:

Yeah, that's pretty much what I use them for. It's one of those tools that you notice you need once you start using scrapers. And once I picked upa scraper, I never looked at sandpaper the same way again!:D
 
Only for hand scrapers

They all look very nice, Dom. Do you use a burnisher on your turning scrapers, or just your card scrapers?

Thanks Vaughn!

I use the Veritas Burnisher for my turning scrapers. But to be honest, I hardly use that unless I actually plan on doing so. I tend to sharpen on the grinder then move right to the lathe.

Personally I would use this burnisher on my card scrapers and scraper blades for my planes.
 
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