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
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