Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Milling a Metal Scriber”.
So you’ve just bought your first bench, top life or maybe you’re just about to, and you just can’t wait to get started, making custom metal parts for all of your other projects. What you really need right now is something cool to make to try it out and get a feel for the machine. Well, I’ve got just what you’re looking for a metal scriber. Not only is it a great weekend project, but when you’re finished you’ll have a useful tool that you’ll keep for life. I use mine virtually every time. I step into my shop to make this tool you’ll need these materials a length of brass rod. A steel sewing needle and some metal adhesive, the needle is a common sewing needle approximately one millimeter in diameter.
The brass rod can be any diameter between 3/8 and quarter inch. Approximately 5 inches long will feel about right when you’re using it and for metal bonding. I use this type of metal adhesive a lot and find it works great, but if you can’t get any, I think cyanoacrylate would be just fine. First up, let’s reduce the length of the needle. It needs to be about 3/4 of an inch long. If you have access to a grinder or a belt sander, then this step is dead. Easy, if you don’t have a grown-up here’s, an alternative hold the needle in a vise and using a tri cut file make a little nick in the side. You can, then, simply snap off the excess with a set of pliers. Just don’t be tempted to use your cutters. The hardened steel of the needle may tip the blade next up, we’re going to face the length of brass rod, load it into your three jaw Chuck and then pull the Chuck through a few turns by hand to confirm the rod is being held properly.
Now, before we start cutting, I want to show you something interesting about the tool we’re using here. You may have been given a cutting tool when you first purchased your life. More than likely, it looks something like this with an angled top. This is called the rake of the tool and, if it slopes back like this, then the tool has been shaped for cutting steel, but we’re cutting brass and bronze behaves differently to steel.
When it’s machined, it has a tendency to grab the cutting tool and dig in so to avoid this. We machined brass using these flattop tools that have what’s called zero rake, we’re going to start with a tool on the left for the facing cuts and then use the tool on the right for some ornamental grooves, so load the facing tool onto the lathe tool post And then set the tool on to Center hope using the tailstock centre as a reference orient the tool to face the work and then take a facing cut like this now flip the rod and then do the same thing to the other end. Next, we want to drill a hole in the end of the rod so that we can insert that needle so set up the drill chuck in the lathe tailstock find a drill bit. That’S just a tiny bit larger than the needle.
It’S also a good idea. To always start drilling with a spotting drill like this, it’s a short stiff drill bit. That starts the whole small drill. Bits in particular have a tendency to wander off course, so. Making an accurate starting point helps to ensure that the hole ends up where you want. It to be once you have the whole started, putting your other drill bit and continue drilling the hole, it’s quite a deep hole relative to the size of the drill bit.
So you’ll want to pick a weight it like this and clear. The chips often use a light touch to stop the bit from flexing and keep going until you’ve made the hole about a half inch deep. Now, if you don’t have a drill bit this small, you can make your own from a spare needle like this grind a two-sided taper on the needle using a grinder or even an oil stone. If you’re using a grinder, keep the contact with the belt short.
You don’t want to soften the steel with too much heat you’re aiming for something that looks like this now form a pointer tip on the end again use very light touches to the grinder and when you’re finished you’ll end up with something like this. It’S called a spear point bit and it’s a type of drill bit that’s been made and used by clock makers for hundreds of years now it doesn’t have spiral glutes like a modern drill bit. So we need to clear the chips much more often and it sure beats buying a specialist drill bit for just a single year’s okay. Now, let’s set up the lathe to cut the little taper on the end of the scriber, I found a tape of around six degrees. Looks about right, so we’re going to set up to cut half of that angle. If your lathe has a moveable headstock like this one, then it’s going to mean doing something like this.
If, however, you have a more traditional design, lathe, maybe something more like this bench top model, then you’ll be loosening off the compound and moving it like this. Okay, take the cut to form the taper and keep going until it looks about right to you. The end of the cut puts you very close to the Chuck so be mindful. I’M not running the tool a little bit and then put a nice chamfer on the end to narrow it even further.
The cutting tool is a little further from the Chuck than we’d normally accept. So if you get a bit of chat-up, just slow the lathe right down and let the tool scrape the work with brass, you could even turn the light off and pull the Chuck through by hand to remove any chatter marks. Next, we’re going to put some ornamental grooves along the body of the scriber that’ll, also give it a nice grip so reset the headstock back to the straight position and extend the work a little further from the chuck. We’Re now going to use the other cutting tool which is being shaped to cut threads, and it’s perfect for what we want to do here.
Position the tool so that it’s perpendicular to the work and make the first plunge cut. The position and spacing is entirely your choice, my lady’s metric, I’m feeding in a half millimeter and then moving the carriage along two millimeters before taking the next cutter to continue the pattern extend the stock register, the tool in the last groove and then move along to The next position to make another cut this way the tool is cutting as close as possible to the headstock, and it should minimize in each other if you’d, like the tool to have a bright surface finished. Now is a good time to take care of this.
In with a buffing stick: okay, that’s one and complete. Now do something similar on the other end of the tool you and again, a little memory paper will bring up the surface finish nicely. Okay, the last step is to fix the needle in place with a drop of adhesive and we’re done. This is a great little tool and you’re going to find it useful for many purposes beyond just laying out your designs on metal. If you wear out or bend the point, no problem, just gently heat up the tip and the adhesive will break you can pull out the damaged one and fix in a new one, I’m Chris from clickspring thanks for watching I’ll catch you on the next article. If you like this video subscribe to our website or send us a comment on Facebook or Twitter, be sure to check out our other project, videos or visit us on make zine calm. .