File Handles & Case – #3 Final Turning, Finishing & Start of Case

For mounting in the 4-jaw lathe chuck a 1 ¾” x 1 1/8” dowel is turned from leftover oak.  It gets a pilot hole slightly larger than the diameter of the smooth part of the screw followed by a 3/8” countersunk hole deep enough so the threaded part of the mounting screw extends beyond the end of the dowel.  The drawing below shows what a section of that looks like.  Mounting the blank on the dowel by running the screw into the previously drilled hole locks the blank tightly in place so it can then be mounted in the 4-jaw headstock.

To make sure the initial screw installation is in line with the lathe’s center axis the blank and the screw along with a square screw driver are put in the lathe per the top photo below.  The bottom photo is a closer view of the blank, screw and square bit driver.

With the initial wood threads cut in the blank the screw is put in the dowel’s countersunk hole (top photo) and the same process as above is used to run the screw in until it is holding the dowel tight.  In the bottom photo the assembly has been reversed and clamped in the 4-jaw along with having the tailstock run up tight to the blank.

Turning the top or heel of the blank to match the first cut pattern is followed by rough sanding with 120 grit sandpaper which gets rid of any minor variations and smooths out the piece as shown in the top photo.  Cutting and burning the decorative grooves at the heel is next.  Shown in the bottom photo both of the grooves are laid out and the right groove has been cut in using a parting tool.

The top photo has the left groove cut and the right groove burned in.  Burning the groove is done by holding a thin wire in the groove while the lathe is running.  Friction between the wire and the wood heats the wire enough that the wood in the groove gets charred.

With the grooves completed the waste end of the handle gets cut off using a fine-toothed Japanese pull saw that leaves a little stub on the handle’s end identified by the red arrow.  Some delicate work with the lathe tools followed up by fine sanding the whole handle gives the smooth surface shown in the bottom photo.

The last bit of woodwork before applying the finish is to drill out the mounting hole that was used by the mounting screw so it matches the shafts on the files.  In the setup below the drill gets mounted to the lathe’s headstock and a cup shaped adapter is attached to the live center in the tailstock.  This arrangement helps make sure the enlarged hole is aligned and square with the center axis of the handle.  To also help in keeping the hole in line rather than jumping to the final bit diameter intermediate sized bits are used to gradually increase the hole’s size.

With those holes sized to fit the file shafts the three handles are ready for the Danish Oil Finish (DOF).

Three coats of the DOF are applied by wiping on a wet coat with a cloth then adding more as the finish is absorbed for about 15 minutes.  At the end of that time any excess DOF is removed with a clean cloth and the handle is left to cure overnight.  This photo shows what one handle looks like when the first coat is applied.

After the DOF has cured for a few days, the files get epoxied in place.  A 24-hour long cure epoxy is used so I have plenty of time to make adjustments as needed.  A little epoxy is used to coat the inside of the handle using a toothpick.  It doesn’t take much as there is almost no play between the file and the hole in the handle.  I put the epoxy in the hole because if I coated the file any excess would get scraped off and left in a gob on the end of the handle which is a mess to clean up.  The completed handle and file assemblies are shown below while the other photo shows how the handle fits in my hand.  For reference the total length of the handle and file assembly is about 6 inches.

The second project in this series is building a case to hold six small metal files along with the interchangeable handle I had from another set of files.  Right now, the handle is stored loose in my file drawer while the files are stored in the soft plastic case they came in.   Making a case for both the files and handle seems like a good idea so I don’t lose the handle and because it’s only a matter of time before that plastic case begins to fall apart.

As I normally do the design starts with making several 3D drawings exploring different configurations to hold the six files along with the interchangeable handle.  Below are four different versions that didn’t make the cut.  Mostly because they made the case was too big or it didn’t provide easy access to remove the files from the case.  The bottom right option has a slot to hold a brass brush for cleaning the files.  In the end it got deleted since I keep the brushes together so they are easy to get to and can be used on any file.

Here are the two finalists with the bottom one being the selected option for a few reasons.  I felt it would give better access to the files and there would be less chance of them sliding out of the box when it was opened standing upright plus it addressed some construction issues

In these two renderings the left one has the lid open and upright but the lid can be opened more so the top lays out flat.  This setup will be used when just one or two files are used on a project then put away.  The right rendering is how the case will be set when it will be out for a while and several different files are used.

Next Up – Wood Selection & Roughing out Blanks

File Handles & Case – #2 Ferrules & Rough Turning

Setting the turned oak blanks aside for the moment the next step is to work on the ferrules.  These are a ring I will make from copper that will reinforce the end of the file handle to help prevent the oak from splitting.  The top photo shows a 4 ¾” long file handle whose copper ferrule is about ¾” long.  Because the handles for these files will be much smaller the ferrule is scaled down.  The copper piece I start with is a 3/8” slip fitting for use in soldered water lines and the like.  It’s about 7/8” long with an outside diameter of about 9/16”.  It will get cut into two pieces each about 7/16” long.  The copper gets cut using a tube cutter and to make the cut I need to make a mandrel to lightly hold the copper fitting.  The turned mandrel is shown in the bottom photo.

The copper fitting needs to easily come off the mandrel but needs to be tightly held while being cut.  That’s done by cutting a slot in the end of the mandrel then driving in a wedge to expand the end.  That cut is made on the bandsaw so I can easily center it.

After the slot is cut the copper fitting gets pushed back on and a stubby screwdriver acts as a wedge to hold the fitting tightly in place.  The hardened steel cutting wheel in silver tube cutter (red arrow) does the actual cutting.  It works by tightening the knob at the bottom of the cutter a little at a time while spinning the cutter around and around.  In no time the cutting wheel parts the fitting into the two pieces shown in the lower right inset.

In the top photo are the two cut in half fittings, of the four pieces three will get used.  All the edges need to be cleaned up before they can be used.  The four cut edges have a sharp burr (red arrows) that has to be removed.  The bottom photo shows the setup for removing the burrs and filing the ends flat.  Filing the ends flat does leave a sharp wire edge on the inside of the fitting which gets removed with the small round file shown.

Removing the NIBCO manufacturing stamp is next.  The top two photos show the stamp before it’s removed and after it has been filed and polished to an almost mirror finish.  The bottom photo shows the setup in the lathe for the work.  The screw acts as a wedge to expand the wood so the copper is held tightly in place.

Taking the filed surface of the copper pieces to a polished finish uses all the different abrasives shown in the photo below.  The process starts out with 120 grit sandpaper then works up through finer and finer grits ending up using 1800 grit wet/dry silicon carbide paper.  Polishing is next and that’s done with the items on the far right.  It starts by using a buffing wheel with Tripoli buffing compound and finishes up with a buffing wheel loaded with Red Rouge mounted on the drill.

Turning the oak handles and fitting the just finished copper ferrules to them are next.  This starts by drawing a circle just over 9/16” diameter on the oak blank tenon end.  The actual tenon will be just a shade under ½” diameter but this gets me close without having to stop turning and measure frequently. The photo shows the handle blank ready to turn the tenon.

The lathe work itself starts by turning the handle down to an oversize cone from handles high point down to the tenon making sure to leave a lip for ferrule.  With that done fitting the tenon so copper ferrule will just fit is next.  To get close I use a ½” open end wrench acting as a gauge.  As I turn when it slips over the tenon it’s right at ½” in diameter.  That’s done by me holding the wrench in my right hand letting it lightly ride on the oversize tenon while using a parting tool with my left hand to carefully cut away the tenon.  From here the diameter of the tenon is very carefully cut down until the copper ferrule just slides over the tenon.  It needs to just slide on without being forced but doesn’t wiggle.  The difference between those two can be measured in a few thousands of an inch.

Once the three ferrules are fitted, they then are epoxied in place and left to cure overnight.

Because I want all of the handles to be identical the easiest way to make that happen is to cut a couple of templates on scroll saw to be used while turning the profile.  Here is the first one cut with the waste piece set back into the blank.  The pencil line marks the centerline of the handle.  A second template is cut the same as the first one but has the curved part of the butt end removed (highlighted in red) which is used in the next step. 

This second template is used after the handle blank is mounted back into the lathe, the wood tenon brought almost flush with end of the ferrule and copper edge rounded over to remove its sharp edge.  The photo shows all that done along with the template set in place which will be used as a guide to check during turning.  The two red arrows show a couple of ¼” drill bits being used as spacers so the template is held the same distance away from the handle blank at both ends which are my reference points.  This works because the turned end of the handle and the ferrule is already at the finished diameter. 

Refining the handle profile to match the template from its high point and blending the oak to copper connection seamlessly is next.  I can get the shape pretty close but one of the ¼” bits is used to help me find any high spots.  Some sanding helps clean up any minor problems. 

To finish turning the handles need to be reverse mounted so the copper ferrule end is towards the headstock rather than its current position facing the tailstock.  This starts by drilling holes in the ferrule end so the blank can be screwed into an adapter mounted in the lathe allowing the butt end to be turned.  A two-step process starts by using a short bit to drill a shallow hole.  The short bit prevents the bit from wandering while starting the hole.  Second, a longer bit drill used to get the required depth.

Once that’s done, I have three blanks ready for the final turning setup.

Next Up – Final Turning, Finishing & Start of Case 

File Handles & Case – #1 File Handle Materials & the Start

Since summer here in the desert gets pretty hot my time in the shop is limited so not too much gets done.  I did one small project which was making a cage for our fig tree.  The local javelinas or peccaries look similar to a wild pig and had decided to root around the fig nearly destroying it in the process along with the cage used to keep the birds from eating all the figs before we could pick them.  After digging the plant up and repotting it I rebuilt the cage.  The cage frame is cedar with the end cuts waterproofed so they don’t soak up water and then sealed.  Aluminum corners are used on the bottom frame for joint reinforcement while the top is put together with waterproof glue and screws.  Its end cuts are also waterproofed.

Anyway, as it started to cool a bit I got started on a couple of projects that had been put off for several years.  First is to add some handles to three stubby wood files made for a jig saw that are too short to use well without handles.  Second, is to build a case for some other small files to replace the plastic pouch they came in.

Looking for suitable material I settled on two options.  A piece of cherry that’s the right size and a much larger piece of quarter sawn white oak get selected.  I have made other handles from cherry and it works well but have never used white oak so though I would give it a try.  This piece of white oak got selected because it’s a problem child that has been moved around in the shop since 2008.  The reason it has never been used is that the plank this piece came from is riddled with internal cracks.  The center photo shows a typical crack on the end of the piece and the bottom photo shows multiple cracks and splits along the piece’s edge.  Most of this oak has been turned into jigs or firewood but sometimes there are short pieces that are usable and that’s what I am hoping to find.  Otherwise, it’s firewood.

First step is to rip about ¼” inch off the cracked edge to see if the cracks were getting better or worse.  The top board is what the original edge looked like.  The piece below was what got exposed after the ¼” got removed and was not encouraging with fewer but bigger cracks coming to light.  With nothing to lose another ¼” was cut away to reveal the edge shown at the bottom of the stack and surprisingly a clean solid crack free edge got exposed.  Now with one good edge a 1 5/8” thick piece gets ripped to make my oversize blank for the handles.  Fortunately, the newly cut edge is also crack free so the whole piece may be solid.  Further ripping to a 1 3/8” width and thickness showed no problems so this is my blank for the handles.  The offcuts are set aside for fireplace starter and the 1 ¼” wide remainder of the original board gets set aside for another project.

Using the chop saw with a stop block the oak blank gets cut into four equal sections for the required three handles plus one extra.

Using a center finder the center point of the oak blanks are located as shown in the top photo.  After that a center point is added using a spring-loaded center punch.  Most of the holes ended up in the right place but there were a couple that due to the end grain were a little off-center.  That won’t be a problem since the blanks will be turned round between centers on the lathe so the resulting cylinder will be concentric about the punched dimples.

To make turning the square blanks into a cylinder easier I decided to cut the four corners off to make an octagon.  That’s done using the bandsaw with its table tilted to a 45-degree angle.  The photos below show the setup with an inset closer view so you can see where the bandsaw blade is set to make a cut just slight larger than the desired cylinder.

When run through the bandsaw each corner gets cut off so you end up with an octagon that will make turning the blanks round on the lathe a lot easier.

Last step before starting turning is to take the drive center (black toothed steel piece) set its point in the punched center in the oak blank and give it a good whack.  Here I used a white oak mallet rather than a regular hammer so as not to deform the drive center.  The result is a matching toothed pattern that will engage with the drive center when it’s all setup in the lathe.  If you want to see how the mallet was built here is the link.

Here the top photo is with the blank mounted in the lathe before turning starts and the bottom photo is after the blank has been turned into a cylinder.

The missing step between the above photos is when the piece is being turned round.  For this work I don’t need a perfect surface so used a roughing gouge.  It leaves a pretty good surface but not as good as other tools.  The goal is to get the blank turned smooth, round and to within 1/32” of my target diameter.  That accuracy is probably overkill but it’s good practice for when I get to making the matching handles.

Here are the three blanks along with one spare ready to be turned to their final shape.  I don’t anticipate any movement in the blanks but given the quality of the original plank it’s better to be safe and let them set while I work on the ferrules to be shown in the next post.

Over the years I have made a lot of handles for different things that include a seam ripper made from leopardwood, a small spatula from mesquite and numerous file handles like the 4 ¾” long one in the bottom photo made from cherry.  For these files the shape is going to be similar to this file handle but scaled down to fit the file size.

Next Up – Ferrules & Rough Turning