Why do I need to spend $100+ for draw bore pins?

[Rick Cicciarelli]

The simplest tool ever made as far as I'm concerned...a tapered metal rod. Why does everyone sell them for over $100??!??
This should be a $20 tool. What am I missing and why does it look like I am going to have to spend this kind of money for a set?

[Joe Bailey]

you don't need to spend that much.
go to the last page of this Schwarz article.

[Joe Bailey]

What? You want the link too?
(sorry)
http://www.wkfinetools.com/contrib/c...rawBoring1.asp

[Rick Cicciarelli]

Nice! Thanks! Why would you heat the metal before whacking the wood handle on? Wouldn't heating the metal cause it to expand slightly, so when you whack the wood handle on it, the handle will loosen up once the metal cools and shrinks again??

[Matt Radtke]

I believe the trick is to make the hole undersized a bit. Your shooting for the metal to char the wooden handle, which gives it better grip. Pretty sure old, tang-style chisels were the done the same way.

[Frank Booth]

Great article! Even I can make those..lol. easy peasy

[Zach Dillinger]

You don't need $100 drawbore pins. In fact, you really don't even need a drawbore pin...

[Jerome Hanby]

Well....if I were selling those tools, you would need them because you can't be a real man much less a good woodworker unless you buy a set from me...better make that two sets just to be sure. Since I don't sell them, I'd go find a sears and buy a set of those companion punches that the Schwarz talks about.

[Jack Curtis]

Drawbore pins have eccentric tapers such that as you turn them they gradually draw a tenon further into a mortise. This is very different from the pins Chris talked about, which are just ground round pins tapered from bottom to top. So, how much would you charge to make such pins? I wouldn't do it for $100 a pair.

That said, you need not pay that much. I've bought two pairs for less than $50 per pair plus shipping, purchased used from the UK.

[Marko Milisavljevic]

I was just in the same boat last week, wondering why are these things silly expensive. I'm going Chris S. route, and I couldn't find items he describes at Sears, however there is a vendor on fleabay right now with 6 of them in stock (was 8 until I bought 2 a few days ago), search for "NEW SET PUNCHES ALIGNMENT TOOL SET 8 PIECES"

[Mike Holbrook]

Sure it would be fairly easy to make a tapered steel rod and chances are such a tool could be of use

I think the reason the ones Ray Iles makes are not cheap is they are very precisely made tools. We are talking about tools made to test the size and placement of the drawbore hole, not just fit the hole. The wooden pin used in the hole has to snake its way through the joint. If the size or placement of the hole is off even a small amount, the joint will not tighten or the wood pin or other parts of the joint will break. The RI drawbore pin has to fit well, yet it needs to be able to firm up the joint like the pin will without enlarging the hole. The eccentric shape has to be precise so that twisting it will tighten or loosen the joint to test it without changing the joints shape. In order for the pins to accomplish their assigned task they have to be made to a tight tolerance and a strange asymmetric shape at the same time. I have no idea how this is even done.

[Wes Grass]

I suppose you don't technically *need* to spend $100 on drawbar pins. But considering that $100 won't get you anywhere close to a smoothing plane from Brese, or even all that far with LN or LV, you may as well spend it on the pins.

[Bruno Frontera dela Cruz]

Why not chisel a taper on your peg, chamfer the hole in your tennon a small bit and wack away with your hammer? I have done this for years and never a a problem with the peg breaking our the joint being anything but tight.

[jamie shard]

Jan 14 2012 087.jpg

I made a set of these over the holidays using Craftsman alignment pins. Now that the metal is in the handle, I can't see what size I bought but they were less than 1/4" at the tip and tapered to more than 3/8" --- so perfect for what I needed.

I stripped the paint from the metal using citrus-based stripper.

Then I drilled a hole into the handle blank and used my smallest mortise chisel to make the hole octagon shaped.

I inserted the pin into the handle blank so that I would be able to see how the hole was aligned (it wasn't perfectly plumb/square to my handle blank).

Then I made octagon handles (without a lathe) trying to stay with the axis of the pin. I used a half round file for the curved sections and a block plane and chisel for the flats.

When everything was okay, I epoxied in the handles.

I think I used BLO and a light wipe of tung oil varnish.

Obviously these are fairly simple creations, but I'm sure they'll work great.

Edit: I think the pins were 7$ or 8$ each.

(The two drawbore pins are actually much more similar in size, the camera angle is making one look smaller than the other. I used a micrometer to make sure I was pretty close in sizing a matching pair. Of course, I didn't go for perfection on these.)

[John Coloccia]

For whatever reason, people keep missing the point that a proper draw bore pin needs to be a modified cone so you can tighten joints without damaging them in the process. Sticking a drift pin into a handle IS cheap, but it's also nothing at all like the $89 draw bore pins that Ray Isles sells, so the comparison is really not very fair.

Antique draw bore pins that I occasionally run across (wish I had bought some when I did) all have this funny curve to them, allowing one side to fit flat against the business end of the joint, and also allowing a little twist of the handle to tighten the joint.

As someone else said, there is no way I would make those for $89 a pair.

If you don't want a draw bore pin that works like this, then you don't have to spend $89 on them...you can just stick a drift pin in there.