Metal Spinning Tools - What and How To Make?

TMT haven't we been through this before?. Anyway best resource I know of is

. I think that the form of the tool you make comes with experience. If you ask on the board and explain or show what you want to make often suggestions are made as to the tool form you might require for various parts of the process. Also Terry who runs the BB does a couple of quite good DVDs on spinning and has more on the way.

H>Slowly...ever so slowly...I am getting a metal spinning setup

Google, Image Search, "Metal Spinning" - 3000+ results, and many of those on the first page are useful/relevant for what the tools look like. James Riser's site gets into more blacksmithing detail. Yes, you will have to look past the sites that want to spin metal for you; deal with it.

(plan MST-309, $8)

Thats because metal spinning isn't all that hard to do. The main tools are the lathe and understanding how the metal moves while your working it. What you use to move the metal depends a LOT on how thick the metal is your working with. Thinner sheet stock can be worked with a simple stick of hard maple with a round nose on the working end. Thicker may need something like a roller tool. I use a roller made out of a piece of bar stock with a milled slot for a standard roller bearing for thicker metals.

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

Try pinging DaveB over in AMC. He builds spinning machines.

Now *there* is a dangerous and slippery slope! :)

That's what got me started on blacksmithing as well, as if I didn't already have enough on my plate.

What follows is pretty long, but hopefully it answers some questions you're bound to run into, and will help you save some time and effort.

Here's what I found when I made mine:

I started with 3" bars of 1/2" round 1018 cold-rolled steel from the hardware store and a propane hand torch. This will get the metal hot enough to bang on, and I did manage to make a duck-bill tool and a pointed end on one bar by hammering on it on the back of my vise. After all that, I figured I needed something better to heat the metal with, so I stacked up firebricks to make a chamber that was 1.5" square and about 6" deep and drilled a hole in one of the bricks to fit the nozzle of my hand torch into it. That worked a little better, but it will still only get to a red heat- not what you really need, but it will let you work mild steel.

Of course, as this point, I was still (and probably still am) fairly ignorant about what I was doing, so I hit the blacksmithing group and got some pointers.

So, I made a forge, to get the metal hot enough. It was cheap, but a lot of work. You might be able to get away with an acetaline torch if you have one.

Basically, you'll need a length of pipe and/or steel bucket (or if you work with metal as a trade, you can roll sheet stock and weld the seam, which is what I did), about 2' of 2"od pipe nipples, a pipe elbow, some propane fittings, a couple of pipe nipples to weld into the end of your burner to prevent blowback, some castable refractory material or ceramic wool insulation (Kaowool) and a small air blower. A grinder, welder, some way to cut steel (a hacksaw will work if you're dedicated) and a tap or two are also required. The insulation is the expensive part, but I found a place that sold it wholesale, and when I tried to buy 8 sq ft of it, the owner just gave me a partial roll they had sitting in the corner of the warehouse for nothing because it wasn't worth filling out the paperwork to sell it to me- sometimes you get lucky!

If you're interested in that, I can e-mail you the plans I used off-list.

After you've got a forge, you need something to hammer on. I found that not only are anvils kind of hard to come by, but they cost a lot of $$$. I bought a 60# one that is really old for $90. Others seem to like using sections of old railroad rail as anvils, and it would appear to be a good choice if you can track any down. Even though many vises have an "anvil" area on them, using those is a good way to wreck a vise- the surface is not hardened, and it is easier to break a vise with a hammer than you might think (DAMHIKT!)

Now you're more or less ready to roll. But there is still a little more to do- while researching the subject, I found that the steel at the hardware store is not up to the task for the long haul (though those first tools I made seem to work okay anyway) You'll need to find some high-carbon steel- I managed to track down 1095 at a small place about 30 miles from me, but it was actually very inexpensive.

1095 is also called spring steel or W-1 (water-hardening tool steel). If you can't find it new, 1095 is also used to make brake drums and leafsprings, from what I gather, so a trip to the junkyard could serve you well- I've also heard that many railroad spikes have a high enough carbon content to work, though it sounds like that may be a bit of a crapshoot. An old file can work as well, but make sure it is hot enough before hammering it, or it will crack.

Once you've got your metal, forge, and anvil, you can make all sorts of things- try not to get distracted like I did and make a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with what you started all this for! :)

Basically, once you've this stuff set up, or a viable alternative, you need to heat the steel to an bright orange or yellow heat, and then beat it with a hammer to the shape you need- it's not rocket science, but it does take practice and a handful of know-how.

When you're happy with the shape, let it cool slowly in the air- this is called normalizing. It relieves the stresses in the metal so that it does not warp or crack in the quench. I've made a couple of knives and chisels now, and like to do this two or three times after hammering them to shape. The grains in the steel are growing and shrinking as you do this, and realigning themselves.

After normalizing, grind the working surface smooth- I am by no means an accomplished metal spinner (in fact, I haven't even messed with it in a while- like I said, it's easy to get distracted!) but I do know that they need to be dead smooth, and that's easier to accomplish before the metal is hard. Get it as close to finished as you can.

Now, it's time to harden. Put the metal back in the forge, and heat it until it becomes non-magnetic, which is a simple as it sounds- pull it out every so often and put a magnet against it, when it stops sticking to the metal, you're ready to quench. If you're using 1095, it seems to quench well in brine- fill up a bucket with warm water, and dissolve salt into it until it will float an egg, and you're ready to go. When you get the steel to the point where it is non-magnetic (and not way past it, or the quench will not be as useful,) plunge the area you want hardened into the brine.

Now it it super-hard, but brittle. There are three ways I have seen to temper the metal. You'll need to polish it a little so that you can see the steel change color in all three cases. The first method seems a little fishy to me, but I have been assured that it works- just take a torch and heat the steel until it reaches a "dull straw" color, and let it air cool.

The second is to place the steel in an oven at 425 degrees for 1/2 hour. Check it periodically to make sure it is at that "dull straw" color. This is the first method I tried, and to be perfectly honest, it didn't work out for me- but it is suggested by a lot of bladesmiths, so I imagine I just messed it up.

The last one is the one I like, and have used to temper knives and chisels with good results. When you quench the steel, only dip it in as far as you absolutely must. In the case of a knife, that's just the cutting edge- in the case of a spinning tool, that's just the first inch or less. Then remove it and let it air cool. The residual heat from the unquenched steel will temper the hardened area. I've gotten suprisingly good results from this technique, and it's the easiest one as well.

After that, you just need to grind and polish the surface until you're happy with the finish. Be careful not to be too agressive, or you can wreck the heat treatment- but if you do, just reheat, quench, and temper again.

It's not as tough as it sounds- the forge took about a week to build, mainly spent tracking down parts, and I put about $200 into the whole thing all together, not counting propane or metal. It's fun to do, as well- if you're anything like me, you may find that having a little blacksmithing setup opens up a whole lot of possibilities that will augment your woodworking by allowing you to make twisted drawer handles and number of other metal parts that you would otherwise have to spend a small fortune on, as well as allowing you to make your own turning tools whenever you want, without paying a ton of money for them.

If you have any specific questions, you can e-mail me off-list at prometheuscharter.net

Good luck!

After all that in my previous post, I forgot to mention your big question- I do have a pdf file that has about 50 metal spinning tool profiles in there, as well as some pointers on how to spin. Unfortunately, I don't recall where I found it, but I could e-mail it to you.