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.
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.
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.
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.