Shop-made tools

[Al Messer]

Has anyone here ever made their own inlettting chisels and barrel channel rasps ? What material did you use for the chisels and what spacing for the cutters on the barrel channel tool? I'm thinking of turning Drill Rod to proper diameter and setting the spacing for the cutters the width of my parting off tool. How does this sound? TIA!!

[38_Cal]

I've made inletting scrapers out of better quality garage sale screwdrivers, bent at about an 80* angle, rough shaped on a belt sander, then heated to red, oil quenched, polished and drawn to a light-medium straw. I've made inletting chisels out of O-1, heat treated the same way. When drawing the temper, heat the shank with a propane torch and watch the color change creep into the cutting surfaces. When it's a little bit light, remove the torch and quench in water. Carefully done, you won't melt the handles on plastic screwdrivers!

As for inletting rasps, are you talking about a series of discs or a cold-chisel cut form with actual teeth? For a disc type tool, I would look at grade 8 washers, stacked with smaller diameter 1/8" to 3/16" thick spacers between them.

David

[rsal]

I have had good luck with broken power hacksaw blades for scraping. Nice thing is they are usually thrown away so they are usually yours for the asking. You can shape them as desired with a bench grinder and touch them up on a bench stone.

rsal