A sort of major gloat...

SNIP

Nice score on the material. I think that not only would I be looking at making some tools out of what you now have, but I would also be looking at some of the other ideas of using bits in a holder. You could grind any shape you wanted in a short bit and then put it in a quick change device. Talk about getting max use out of your material! A cold rolled thick metal shaft with a custom ground bit in it seems like a great idea to me. Check this out:

I think you might be batting up short flies on the making of a scroll chuck. I had to break down my old VicMarc chuck after several years of near abuse to get out all the resin, dried finish, dust, dust in the dried lube, etc. It is a complex piece of machinery that has some pretty tight tolerances. You can still get the Vics for around $240 or so I think, and there are many that are significantly under that. I can't imagine how long it would take to machine and finish all the gearing to make a really smooth opening and closing chuck that didn't rattle or come loose in use. Then the annealing, tempering and testing for specific types of steel involved.... ouch. Robert

Oh yeah... that's on the list. Some of the slot punches are almost ready-made for scrapers or skews. Some passes in a mill and a few minutes at the grinder, and I can slide the end right into a steel pipe with a set screw. I figure some of the bigger oddly shaped stuff is going to be attacked with a bandsaw and then milled to make a whole pile of square inserts. It'll be a lot of work, but at $30-100 a pop for decent quality lathe chisels, I figure I can put the effort into it to good effect.

I think you're right- after I posted this, I looked around and found a parts breakdown on them, and that spiral is too much to mess with on manual machines. I was kind of envisioning a series of simple gears, but I see how the spiral insert is a much more eloquent solution. I might try out a four-jaw independant chuck, but it was sort of a passing fancy anyway.

Should've skipped this thread, along with banjo3's Mixed Emitons post - with the link to a pic of his huge wood stash of exotic woods - he got for free.

To be thanked for taking away that much HSS in those forms and sizes - I'd just begun to lose my Envy Green hue and I read your post. Don't know if I'd call it a Major Gloat, but it's up there in the Pretty Nice range. Don't know if you've priced HSS lately but rods in that size ain't going for pocket change.

When, not if, you come up with a new grind - please share and post pics!

As for making a scroll chuck, unless you have a good CNC machine, I suggest you just buy one and spend the time you save on using the turning tools you come up with.

If this were rec.woodworking, I'd have to end with You suck! That not being the case, I'll go with Congratulations on your good fortune.

charlie b who thought getting the equivalent of five 5'x5' sheets of Finnish ply, mainly 3/4" but some 1/2", in usable "scraps" was a gloat worth mentioning.

Prometheus Nice Score! I like to make tools with inserted HSS tips. You might find some ideas on my site. So far the largest I have made is a 1/2" tip in a lenght of 3/4" galvanized pipe. Great roughing tool.

You might consider, for your own personal challenge, a collet chuck; like the Bealle, Multistar or the early "6 in 1". These chucks are nice to use for smaller turnings where your hands are close to if not in contact with the chuck. There are no protruding parts to rip off your skin.

I knew a turner that made a simple chuck similar to one sold by Delta in the 1980's. You cut a recess on the bottom of your turning with a fly-cutter or a parting tool and tightened the chuck into the groove. A central boss spread the jaws as the central screw was turned. It was not a pretty chuck nor was it versatile but it sure held onto the wood.

Or you could make a screw chuck, like the Glaser or Vicmarc. Or pinchucks. Ed.

I'd really be interested in knowing how you plan to mill and saw those HSS pieces.

John Martin

Cutterheads with indexable carbide inserts on a knee mill and Lennox blades. Carbide twist bits for any holes.

I know that a Lennox bi-metal blade without carbide tips will cut A-2, W-1 and O-2 tool steels for certain- even on a smallish gravity powered horizontal bandsaw, though the coolant needs to be off for W-1 and O-2 so it doesn't work harden while sawing. I am fairly sure I cut some M-2 HSS as well, but it's been a while, and if I did, it was only once or twice. If it won't cut with a bi-metal blade, I'll have to spring for a carbide tipped one. The biggest fight with sawing is going to be making good fixtures to clamp the round tooling in the vise securely so it can be sliced into decent flat pieces.

It's tough stuff, but not so tough that it can't be machined with the right feed and spindle speed rates- though I may end up cursing it the first couple of times I try milling the stuff. It won't be totally free, either- I will need to buy the cutterheads and inserts, as all I have available now are HSS mills. Jumping from mild and stainless steel milling to HSS will be a learning process, but a skill well worth developing.

And of course, if all that fails, I've just about got my forge finished, and it'll get worked over with a hammer if it is too tough to machine. I made an exact replica of one a guy demonstrated for me, and it easily gets hot enough to make it malleable.

And even in the worst possible case senario, super-hard *anything* doesn't mean much to a die-grinder.

It'll get used, one way or the other. :)

Hi Prometheus

Just be prepared for the worst possible case scenario as you call it, unless you have some diamond tooling.

The O1 or W1 or W1 steel you where talking about machining was before hardening, and your punches are already hardened, and if you think you can just anneal and harden HSS I do think you are wrong,

Grinding is most likely the way you will have to proceed, nothing wrong with that, it'll just take a little longer, as far as I know that's how a lot of the bowl gouges are made, not like some think by just milling the steel.

And by the end of the day you will have learned a lot and that's never wasted, just be careful and have fun

Do they make diamond machine tooling? I've seen plenty of diamond ginders and stones, but never anything like a face mill.

Hopefully that's not the case, but if it is, I'll figure out the work-around. Information on the alloy is proving difficult to find.

It appears that hot forging between 2150*-1700* F should be an option when I researched it- but I did try grinding a scraper profile last night, and it went pretty easily. The material managed to keep a sharp edge even after rubbing the cutting edge against 1018 sheet steel for a while (though it didn't do anything nice to the sheet I tested it against) Whether or not it will retain any of it's valuable properties after forging is going to be the real question.

Looking at the manufacturer's website, it would appear that they are calling a chromium-molybdenum type 4 alloy "HSS" (I don't know offhand if that is what is normally meant by HSS- but as noted above, that information is not easily obtained), but I dropped them an e-mail to verify this- If that's the case, forging is probably the best possible option, though I know that I have seen guys machine chro-moly alloys with carbide. In those cases, the material is fully annealed before machining, which should be possible with my new gas forge, provided I step the temperature down slowly enough.

And the grinder will work nicely, so no worries there- it even leaves a pretty nice finish on my test tool. Most of the pieces have standard shank sizes and are tapped on one end, so I can either tap some black pipe or slide them in and hold them in place with a set screw (the more likely senario, really).

Will do.