Profile tool

[Bogstandard]

I was asked a while back where I obtained my profile tool from as it seems that they are not generally available in the US, and I said that I had seen the instructions on how to make one somewhere. Anyway, I have found out where I saw it.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ukA3iN31Q[/ame]

This one shows it being used.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ph4nWfzAw[/ame]

One of the main advantages is when it gets worn on the edge it takes only seconds to rotate it to a new area of the tip.

John

 

[firebird]

Hi

there is a reference to `drill rod`. what type of material is this?

cheers

 

[Powder keg]

I think it's called "Silver steel" over there in England)

Wes

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi FB,
Just to verify that Wes is correct with silver steel.
Most places you buy from in the UK you don't have a choice of type, it is usually water hardening, that is the one you want.
Make it, heat to cherry red, drop in water, rock hard and brittle. Polish off, heat to straw colour, drop in water, now rock hard but also tough rather than brittle.
For general purpose turning these tools are great, because they work just like a round nosed tool, leaving a very good surface finish. I have been using profile tools for a few years now and it is used for about 75% of the jobs I do.

John

 

[compound driver]

HI
Silver steel under about 1/4 inch should be held at cherry for a few minutes and then quenched in oil and not water it will alter teh grain structure to the point that tempering will not be as effective.
Always used to use sperm whale oil but good slide way oil seems to work fine if you cant get quenching oil.
Over 1/4 it still wants to be held at cherry for a few minutes and then quenched in water. The addition of salt to the water can create a super hard skin handy if your scriving a very hard surface like skinned cast iron.

tempering colours should be assesed in sunlight and not by a light bulb. Straw is about good for cutting tools on a lathe. Purple works for cold chisels and wood working tools. Springs can be made from both gauge plate and silver steel and should work fine just before purple.

Cheers kevin

 

[Bogstandard]

Kevin,
We are in the 21st century here, not the 19th, where on earth did you get sperm whale oil?

John

 

[compound driver]

Hi

from the shed at the bottom of my fathers garden. Dad had a few cans of it from many years ago he used it for the same jobs I used it for until it ran out. Had a nice smell too it when quenching always made me hungry.

Cheers kevin

In passing sperm oil was still available up to the late 60's early 70's. I can still remember it being listed in the books. Dont think id like to see it again mostly due to the lack of the fish it came from.

 

[firebird]

Hi

Thanks for the good info guys. I've never done any hardening before so bear with me here. On a scale starting at cold and going up to liquid metal, assuming cherry red is somewhhere in the middle does straw colour come before or after red?

Cheers

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi FB,
What you do is after it has been hardened (cherry red and quench), you then clean and polish the part. Then you very carefully play the torch onto the part and you will see almost straight away it will start to change colour on the surface of the metal.
Straw colour is one of the first colours to show. The more you heat it the darker it will go, then it will start to heat up and you will get to the red range. You need to aim for the first colours that show themselves (it only usually takes a couple of seconds).
Once you reach the required colour just pop it back into the quench, that then tempers the material, making it less brittle.
Here are a couple of sites that show the charts, the first are the colours and temp range and the second is the colours required for different tooling. This is really for tool steel but for what you are working with it should be ok.

http://www.westyorkssteel.com/Heat_Treatment/tmpchart.htm
http://www.alexdenouden.nl/08/temper.htm

Hope this helps rather than confuse.

BTW a good example is that when sharpening your lathe tools on the offhand grinder you will see the end changing colour, if it goes any deeper than straw colour you are softening the cutting edge too much. What I do is when sharpening the final act will be to let the tool get to the straw colour and then quench. It really does make a difference.

John

 

[firebird]

Hi John

Thats great, I understand now. It's not something I am going to do immediately but I can see me making some small profile tools in the near future.

Cheers

 

[Hexbasher]

drill rod are ground tool steel blacks......the cheapest is O-1 (oil hardening)...easy to work with and harden despite what some of my friends say who machine in tooling shops

you can get (unhardened) HSS, cobalt, carbide, water hardening, air, or any other kind of tool steel

 

[rake60]

John, locally we call the tool your showing a button tool.
That's not a proper term and you won't find in as such in a Google
search. They range from 1/2" to 1" diameter inserts. On the manual
machines at work we use then a lot!

I have a 2" carbide button insert in my tool box at work.
I tried to use it ONCE to cut a 1" radius under the internal gear tooth
area of a very large ring gear. Far too much tool pressure for the set
up! After the crowd that it had called in left,
(It kind of sounded like a freight train under a machine gun attack.)
I re-indicated the 12ft ring gear and used a smaller button tool to cut the radius.

Used properly they are very useful tools.
As a profiling tool, or simply as a form tool to cut a perfect radius, they
are very much worth their weight.

Rick

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi Rick,
This is a clear case of terminolgy causing confusion.
Jack is another one who has trouble with my 'English English rather than American English'
But it has resolved fairly well. The people who have followed this post now know how to make profile (button) cutters, whereas before they didn't.
Which is what this site is all about, we get there in the end.
I know exactly what you are on about when cutting with these little devils, I only use a 5mm dia. one, but when it gets to cutting the full face of the tool it really moans and groans, but it does a great job. But I don't just use it for profiling, it is used for almost everything, especially facing across, because the finish it produces is like a mirror.

John

 

[compound driver]

Hi John
Sorry to buldozer in but when your tempering the flame should be worked well away from teh finished cutting edge and the colour allowed to run to the cutting part of the tool. Alternativly the tool should be sat on a larger lump of iron and the iron heated till the tool changes colour.

Direct heating will cause the thin cutting edge to be slightly softer than you want.

Cheers kevin