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Fun with Reamers....

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BigHairyPiper
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Jwalker
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Post  Jwalker Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:32 pm

Thought I'd start a topic on building reamers, since that's what plagues me the most in the pipe making world!
So let me say what I've done and what I wish to do next.

Bagpipes made in our shop (me and my Uncle work together):

Scottish Smallpipes, GHB, Scottish Borders pipes.

Reamers used:

For the tapered bore pipes I simply ground down a piece of flat steel to the desired taper, angled the edges back for 2 cutting edges then welded a rod on one end to chuck it up to the drill, step drilled the pipe then finished with the reamers.

What I would like to do:

Well I would like a 3 or 4 fluted tapered reamer made custom for me but since those are about 400$ a piece......

I was thinking of adapting a metal cutting blade to my wood lathe, (It's a very heavy duty lathe) turning a steel rod down to the taper I need, the milling out a channel for a cutting edge....Oh Dang it I gotta go to my other job, I hate being on call...... Well I intended to make this longer but I gotta go, please give any ideas on above topics or reamers, I need advice.

BTW nice job on the new forum,
Thanks
-Joe


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Post  texasbagpiper Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:41 pm

Jwalker wrote:

Well I would like a 3 or 4 fluted tapered reamer made custom for me but since those are about 400$ a piece......


Thanks
-Joe


I used to get these for about $585 over 5 years ago, now I pay closer to $800

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Post  BigHairyPiper Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:04 pm

The spiral fluted reamers are the rolls royce of reamers, they are very well ballanced. The flutes are ground on a hardend steel blank , never used one on wood only on steel .
I made up exactly what Joe was talking about,a solid blank and had 1/4 milled out of it, using top grade tool steel, had it hardened and tempered ,it did bend a little but ground that out, reliving a bit behind the cutting edge. Its still not cutting so am going to take the angle grider to it and grind some more away.
From what I have been told this is the way the old masters use to make reamers, theirs work !!
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Post  Jwalker Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:23 pm

I used to get these for about $585 over 5 years ago, now I pay closer to $800

.


I remember that pic from the old forum, I'm salivating.....


From what I have been told this is the way the old masters use to make reamers, theirs work !!

Good point, like I said even the ones I made from flat steel with a grinder work.

The reason I want to make better ones is becuase now I'm going to make a set of Uilleanns, (I think I'll need about 5 tapered reamers for the regs and all) I would like to make something by shaping it on a lathe so that it spins very true. Anyone had any experience turning metal? Like I said my lathe is very heavy duty, but obviously I can't hold the cutting tools by hand as with wood, so I'll need some sort of solid track mount that holds the cutting tool from what I've seen with my youtube research (my most valuable tool). The thing that worrys me is turning a long taper that ends up at about 3/16" on one end without that breaking while its on the lathe and spinng at a high RPM!

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Post  Bob Salter Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:35 am

I have JUST after a great many years using flat reamers, started turning them. The beauty of turning them is the much higher accuracy that can be achieved. There is a great article on reamer making on volume two of the Sean Reid society journals here:- [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] . Click on volume two at the right hand side. Dont worry about the milling machine too much. I use a grinder which is slow but perfectly good results can be acheived.

Bob
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Post  BigHairyPiper Sun Nov 28, 2010 3:58 am

Thats a very intersting Bob, he is using a myford also . What i did with my lathe was to mount a pillar drill on the cross slide of my lathe. this can be used for milling , your restriced with up and down movement but for roughing out would be ideal.
Its also usefull for drilling holes in a chanter .
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Post  Bob Salter Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:47 am

What type of pipes do you make? My particular favourite is the uilleann pipes but Ive tried a few others. I use the method in the journals I mentioned above. first step turning and then filing away the extra steps. I then grind away nearly 50% creating a d bit reamer. I have seen a lot of discussion about just removing a quarter but the consensus among the pros seems to favour the d bit.Up until recently I used flat reamers and I could scarcely believe how well the d bit works.

Bob
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Post  Jwalker Sun Nov 28, 2010 9:43 am

Bob,
you use a grinder as in you turn the stock on the lathe and take
a grinder to it to get the taper? Or are you just talking about for milling away
for the cutting edge? I could see using a grinder to get the rough
shape of the taper, then maybe something flat and straight to hold against it
and true it up........

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Post  Bob Salter Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:03 am

I use the lathe to create an accurate taper and the use the grinder to remove half of the cone . It is a D shape if you look at it end on. If you like I will get a picture of one. Read [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Bob
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Post  Jwalker Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:52 am

Thanks Bob, that's really helpful.

My problem now is finding out what parts I need to add to my lathe for turning metal.
I might be able to build the block that holds the cutting tool since I can weld and fabricate with steel pretty good. I just need to know where to find the cutting tools, this looks like a small blade that is clamped to a block, what is it called do you know? I'm trying to search it online but I don't know the particular name of that part.

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Post  Bob Salter Sun Nov 28, 2010 11:12 am

The block is called a toolpost, and it bolts onto the carriage. The cutting tools are available on ebay just search for metal lathe cutters. I dont know how you could accurately move the carriage on a woodlathe though. You can buy a metal lathe quite cheaply on ebay theres often a bargain to be had.

Bob
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Post  Jwalker Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:33 pm

thanks Bob this gives me somewhere to start.

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Post  BigHairyPiper Sun Nov 28, 2010 6:08 pm

Yes Bob that was a very interesting article on tapered reamers indeed.Thank you for sharing that with us.Interesting to see lots of flat reamers being used.
I like the way you turn your reamers, a bit at a time. I will try that. I was thinking of making a one piece step drill with multi diameters so in one pass would be ready for the reamer any thoughts on this ? or am I just being lazy? Evil or Very Mad
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Post  Art Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:57 pm

Bob, I second the thanks for posting that article:
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How do you heat treat a reamer after shaping it?
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Fun with Reamers.... Empty Hardning and tempering silver steel

Post  BigHairyPiper Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:22 am

I assume you want to harden and temper silversteel?
Silver steel is very easy to harden and temper and it remains fairly stable .
First you heat up your machined reamer until it is cherry red then quench it in a bucket of cold water , i advise you put it in vertically and not sideways as this tends to warp give it a few minutes and take it out. This is now Hardened,far too brittle to work with .
Now you need to polish it up as if you had just turned it.
We now need to heat the reamer up gently without getting it blackend . It will first turn pale yellow ( straw ), then yellow and then a deeper yellow, its at this stage we quench it again.
It is now tempered and we have took that brittleness out of it
, clean it up and thats it. I hope this is some help to you.
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Post  Art Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:23 am

Thanks, BHP,

How do you do the heating? Can you use a propane torch? With a long reamer, I'd think it would be hard to get the metal evenly hot through all its length.

How do you polish it? With a buffing wheel?
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Post  Bob Salter Tue Nov 30, 2010 1:06 pm


Being quite honest Ive never hardened any of my reamers. The flat ones were ground in gauge plate which is a hard as get out and now Im turning them which takes a HUGE amount of time, Im so worried about them warping that I just dont do it.
Im also a fan of two or three reamers, as they are easier to make in three short sections, one for the throat, one for the main bore and one for the bell. They overlap in dimensions so as to avoid bumps in the bore. I have avoided making the reamer for the srs kenna c set as there are around 45 measured points on the reamer..Once I realised that if I made three reamers there would only be fifteen points on each one, give or take, there was no contest. Im HOPING to make the main bore reamer this weekend but there's 18 inches of snow on top of my shop and the older I get the less I like the cold.
I used to use propane but struggled a bit with it. I bought a roth superfire two which can take MAPP which burns a lot hotter. Better results with that, but for me, the turning point came when I bought a pumice brazing hearth on ebay. It reflects the heat back into the workpiece very well so you heat for less time. Well worth the small investment(15 quid, I think)

Bob
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Post  Art Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:57 pm

Wow, that's a lot of snow, Bob. I didn't realize you get that much in Scotland. It'd be hard to get me out in the garage in those conditions.

What's a pumice brazing hearth? Something like this? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Would that be wide enough to heat up a long reamer?

Would an enclosure made from a few fire bricks work about as well? Using bricks has an advantage in that you could add extra bricks to make it long enough.

I've got a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but I think it might be too fine a point. Your Roth Superfire II is probably more like this Bernzomatic TS8000:
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Post  Bob Salter Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:34 pm

Yrah thats the hearth ok. Its brilliant for ferrules including the mainstock one. Fire bricks should work just as well for reamers but Im sure the more experienced makers can help you out. The last torch you mention, the TS8000, is the same as the Roth.

Bob
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Post  woodworker Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:43 am

I've heard some say that the reamer will bend after treatment and so some people do not heat treat at all because of that

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Post  Bob Salter Wed Dec 01, 2010 7:39 am

Brr, Im going to dig a path out now....maybe Very Happy

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Post  Art Thu Dec 02, 2010 1:32 am

How long will that snow last, Bob?

I wonder if uneven heating of the reamer isn't the cause of some of the problems people have been reporting?

Earlier I was considering creating a bed of hot coals made hotter with a fan or blower. There e are number of YouTube videos showing simple setups.
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Post  Bob Salter Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:37 am

Snow is supposed to tail off over this weekend and a big freeze is due to start. It was -14 c last night. Then a thaw towards the end of the week so no doubt flooding will become the problem.
Do you intend making pipes professionally? I have made reamers in mild steel which were good for a fair few chanters before they were consigned to the bin. Gauge plate lasts a lot longer. As soon as I have a few reject reamers I will start to experiment with hardening, although the guy in the last youtube clip only stays a few miles from me so I may try to persuade him to do it for me. The forge in the first clip was made in the same stuff as the brazing hearth we spoke about earlier. Those clips have given me something to think about.

Bob
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Post  BigHairyPiper Fri Dec 03, 2010 4:55 am

There are many kinds if tool steel and silver steel there are diffent ways to harden and temper them, some with oil, some with water, I have even hardened and tempered silver steel with an air line works reall well.
I found this thought it might be interesting

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you will need to copy and paste it.
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Post  Bob Salter Sun Dec 12, 2010 1:02 pm

Good grief, Ive just spent six mind numbing and utterly stressful hours making stepped reamer blanks. The main bore reamer had 25 points to measure, all done with a micrometer each point measured several times. No measurements are out by more than .02mm. My eyes will be permanently crossed. Shocked Still, with the throat and main bore reamers made I just need to smooth and grind, which is slow but stress free. By next weekend I should be able to give them a tryout in some plastic. I'll also need to make a bell reamer but that shouldn't take too long. In case you wondered, I decided on three reamers as each one is two thirds less stress that a single large one. Three will also allow a little more control over the throat positions and so on. This reamer is for the Timothy Kenna C set from SRS journals. You can just make out the small steps if you look carefully

Bob

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