My Wife and I want to make a few Christmas ornaments for gifts this year. I visited Woodcraft last week intending to buy the Sorby tool set for onrnaments, but balked at $114 for three itty-bitty little tools. Call me cheap, but I think I would like to make my own tools for this purpose!
So my question is, have you made your own Christmas ornament tools? Would you be willing to lend me the benefit of your experience? Where to get the metal? How to bend the bent ones? The theory behind various shapes?
There is no reason to be fancy when hollowing ornaments, the only purpose is to make them lighter.
I bought a set of miniature tools from HF, and they have been so useful that I picked up a second set in one of my trips. There is a bent tool in the set that can be easily reground for hollowing. It sells for $9.99 for 12 pcs. !! I even use them for detail work on pens. It even has a beading tool. Check it out. The steel is better than their regular turning set.
Right now those Sorby tools are $80 at Woodcraft as there is a 30% off sale on Sorby tools.
That is still more than $25 per tool, which is a LOT for those tinny tools.
The curved tools are to get in tight to the small opening. The home made versions of these usually are made from drill rod with a cutter glued into a hole drilled in the end of the drill rod. The rod is bent with a rod bending press to the desired shape.
You will notice that the big bend puts the tip of the tool in line with the shank of the tool. That is so the tool isn't twisted from your hand. You have to work with this tool so the straight part of the shank is on the tool rest.
The reason for the glued in cutters is because heat treating HSS is beyond most of us.
You could make the tool out of high carbon steel and do the heat treating with a MAP torch. You need to do a little reading or better yet learn hands on from someone who has done this. But then you make tool that look very much like the Sorby tools only out of high carbon steel instead of High Speed Steel.
Home made HCS tools of this kind are VERY effective.
The cost for doing it yourself is several hours of your time and maybe $20.
You also can make different shapes to suit your needs.
A different tool for hollowing is the David Ellsworth style. You don't need to bend the drill rod for his style. One tool straight and one with the cutting tip at an angle. Very effective.
You can use any 1/4" to 3/8" tool (spindle gouge, bowl gouge) and use it like a scraper to do hollowing.
The idea with the ornaments is to lighten the globe, not to make a 1/8" even wall thickness. So you don't need to make a perfect finish on the inside. Just remove half or more of the wood through a small hole.
Sorry Scott, I didn't intend to go on for so long.
I make all of my own and have made sets for others. I just use drill rod but have made angled cutters with HSS tips. It's a lot of work and not necessary if you don't turn a lot of ornaments. The drill rod lasts quite a while if properly hardened.
I have instructions on heat treating metal but don't have photos of how I make my ornament tools. I can send a photo of some of my tools but it may be a day or so. I'm working 16hrs for the next 2 days which doesn't leave a lot of time to do that sort of thing.
E-mail me if you don't get the answers you need and I'll work with you. One way or another we'll get you a set of ornament tools. John
>Here's a link to an incomplete article I had started several months ago but never came back to. It just shows a few of the tools I've made for small hollowing.
As for the types of metal to be used, you can use anything really. For most small hollowing, you're not likely to be out over the toolrest too far (there ARE exceptions of course and safety should be an extra concern here if you do). A basic carbon steel should be fine. It'll be easier to bend and heat treat as well. HSS works well but is a bit tougher to bend. Drill rod (usually an O-1 type) is a good balance between hardness (holding an edge longer) and being able to work it into shape easier. I use MAP gas a lot but a propane torch will work (albeit slower) for drill rod and softer steels to heat to bend and heat treat to harden/temper afterward. Use a vise and some heavy pliers to bend things into shape. Then grind to a scraper shape.
As for profiles, you'll want to start out with the classic rounded scraper shape probably. Have one that is a straight shaft; one that is about 45 degrees off of straight; and maybe one that is a gooseneck shape too if you'll have some serious undercut lips anywhere that the other two can't reach. That'll get you 95% of where you're most likely going to need to go with these ornaments. If you want to get adventurous later, you can start making small ring or hook tools as well. But that's beyond just ornaments hollowing. Oh, here's a link to another article on doing an ornament too...
Take the ornaments as thin as you dare but don't worry too much about getting them really thin. Just lighten up the weight of them. Have fun and post the results of your adventure.
>I used (fought) those tiny tools for years but have found my homemade tools a sheer delight to use. I bought 18" length of 3/8" HSS drill rod from MSC ($20), bent the rod to about 45 degrees in the middle, cut the rod into two about 1/2" to 3/4" in front of the bend. This results in a "bent tool" and a "straght tool". You must bend the drill rod (I used a press) before cutting it into two. You do not need the tool with the semi-circular bend. I ground the top half inch of the tips flat and shaped the tips like an "inside scraper". I mounded them about 3" deep into handles with copper ferrels. With these tools, you can really hog out the "innards" of a 3"-4" ornament in about 10 minutes.
To make an ornament, I drill a 5/8" hole through a 4" blank held by a chuck. I selected this size hole purely because it is the minimal size to feel around inside the ornament with my little finger. Your needs may differ 8*). I turn the outside with the tailstock engaged and remove it for hollowing. Leave quite a bit of wood (thickness) on the chuck-side of the ornament until it is hollowed then go back and finish turning the outside (on the chuck-side) of the ornament down to a 3/4" tennon (or less). Sand, lacquer, and part off with the toe of a skew chisel.
When turning the icicle and finial, I use a 5/8" wrench (one jaw sharpened) to quickly cut the tennons for a nice firm fit for the 5/8" hole in the ornament.
Last November I took a class on making Christmas Ornaments at my local Lee Valley Store. The instructer made his own hollowing tools for this purpose with allen keys that he had ground the short end into an angle scraper and then inserted into a home hade turned woodedn handle, The were great, the faceted allen key is easy to hold on a tool rest and using the Veritas scraper burnishing tool really made the scraper effective.
I good friend made me an angled scraper for this purpose from drill rod, but it was hard to hold on a tool rest, so I ground and sanded the back flat.
I am in the midst of turning about 20 or so of them right now, It's a great deal of fun!
>Here is selection of my ornament hollowing tools. The two on the left are straight tools. I do most of the hollowing with these.
The next one is a HSS tool bit silver soldered to a drill rod blank. The next 3 are made from drill rod. I use these to hollow the first 1/3.
The last two ae used for hollowing things that have really straight bottoms or even undercut bottoms. I made these thinking I would need them but hardly ever use them. The HSS bent tool will reach almost anywhere. you could make one out of drill rod by simply heating and bending the drill rod to the same angle.
>John, that is some awfully expensive drill rod. I get mine locally from Rex Supply. 3/8 in by 36 in. long is $3.61 for oil hardened and $2.89 for water hardened. 1.4 in. is $1.80 and $1.44. The oil-hardened can be hardened to 63-65 Rockwell hardness with just 300 degrees. I use Boiled Lindseed Oil for hardening. All you need to heat treat is a couple of inches at the tip and a Mapp torch will easily do this. When you eventually grind beyond the hardening, just re-heat and quench again. Repeat until the tool is used up.
Your right. I buy mine from www.travers.com and get it for about what you said. You can easily heat treat 1/4" or 5/16" rod with a butane torch. It just takes longer than a MAPP gas torch. Like you said you only do the tip. It's very hard to heat up more than an inch or so to the proper temperature.
>Scott, I have used square shank screwdrivers of various sizes for small turning tools. Good quality ones that are made of Chrome Vanadium steel are very durable and hold an edge very well. I clamp them in a machinist vise and heat with MAPP, bend to desired shape, let cool in the vise, shape and sharpen. The handle is already installed and can be reformed to your liking. Go to your local Thrift/Second hand store, pawn shop, etc. you can find good quality tools for less than a dollar or so. Jim S. in Beautiful McMinnville, OR.
>I agreed that HSS is a bit expensive and I now noticed that MSC offer the rod in the 36" length only ($36).
The original thoughts were to have the quality (toughness) of a HSS set of tools similar to but more substantial than the Sorby set at a mere fraction of the cost ($20 vs $100+). I have found that my HSS tools hold an edge MUCH longer than tools I have made from O-1. Of course, I can only presume I hardened/tempered the O-1 steel correctly. An alternative method for getting HSS at the business end of these hollowers is to glue in a 1/4" metal lathe bit into a hole drilled into a steel rod (1/2"). This works but the extra thickness in the shaft is limiting in a 5/8" hole. I prefer my 3/8" hollowers for ornaments.
