Three down ..

[Derek Cohen]

What happened to number two? Well, that's done too


The chair-making tools are now complete. Together with the travisher, a reamer has been completed ...





(I also tweaked the travisher ... I cannot leave anything alone for long)





The reamer is based on the Pete Galbert/Tim Manney design. It features a 6 degree taper (mine ended up at 7 degrees for all the care I took. I doubt this will make any difference).


The blade was made from spring steel ... several years ago Rob Lee passed on a tip about commonly available spring steel (at that time this was for backsaws) in the form of floor scrapers ..





This became a blade 8" long ...





I used the bandsaw an a thin blade to cut the kerf. The blade sits in this nice and snug ...





Wood for the reamer is Hard Maple with a little fiddleback.


The blade can be adjusted via a set screw ...





The pointed end also has a part to play - it is used for sighting angles.


Along the kerf is a gutter to collect shavings ...





The gutter can be seen from the end. It makes the body look lop-sided ...








Once the reamer was completed, a tapered tenon cutter was made to match the reamer. The wood here is a Sheoak ..











All the tools ...








Regards from Perth


Derek

[David Eisenhauer]

Looking good and now ready to go. Look out chair seats.

[Jim Koepke]

Interesting build thread for all of us who think about making Windsor style chairs.

It looks like the reamer body was hot melt glued to a guide piece to feed to the band saw.

One question, how was the scraper cut?

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Derek,
I have some time on my reamer at this point and really I think it is not fit for serious work. I wonder if you'll find the same conclusion. I yearn for a metal reamer, single blade.
I have a 2 oe 3 degree reamer from a guitar maker that is steel, it cuts exceedingly well. It ruined me for reamers as I think the wooden ones are lousey. Still I can't seem to come across one that is 6 or 7 degrees for the life of me.
All said, I think you did a beautiful job on it.

[Adam Schultz]

Very cool. I need a tapered reamer for the peghead holes in a guitar I am building. I wonder if a skinnier version would still work?

[James Pallas]

Derek, Very nice work. You always do a good job finishing your tools. They always look ready to sell. You must have used one of your high angle blades that you "don't need" for your tenon shave. PMV 11? It should last a very long time.
Jim

[Matt Evans]

Looks good.

Not sure about reamers, but I make 2.25" taps out of wood with single steel cutting edges. I typically bolt all the way through the metal though, since I encounter a lot of torque that I need to mitigate. And nope, they ain't nearly that pretty.

That Sheoak looks a heck of a lot like sycamore. . .

[Derek Cohen]

Brian, I made this reamer because it is the angle (6 degrees) recommended by the guys who seem to know what they are doing when building Windsors. However, while it handles soft wood fairly easily, I have my doubts about hardwoods, such as Hard Maple. It will ream the latter, but it is a slow process. It does do a nice job, nonetheless. To be safe, I have gone ahead and ordered the Veritas taoered reamer (with the adjustable/sharpenable blades) along with a set of tapered tenon cutters. Chris Schwarz raves about this combo, but these are a higher angle (12 degrees).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Derek Cohen]

That Sheoak looks a heck of a lot like sycamore. . .

Matt, that could indeed be the case. That piece of wood was given to me about 15 years ago, and I was told it was a Sheoak (there are different varieties). It has never looked right. A lot softer than the stuff I use, and paler in colour.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Matt Evans]

From Wikipedia, so make of it what you will:

"The American sycamore is also well adapted to life in Argentina and Australia and is quite widespread across the Australian continent especially in the cooler southern states such as Victoria and New South Wales."

So it may well be Sycamore. Then again, it could be something completely different. Wood Identification after the fact is often a challenge (for me at least).

That being said, no matter the species, it ought to hold up well as a chair dowel chamfering widget, and look pretty good as well.

[joel cervera]

Very nice looking tools. Cant wait to see the chairs!

And that surely does look like sycamore to me, as well. I have 3 large sycamore trees in my yard and have gotten some boards from large branches the have been trimmed. The grain on your tool is a dead ringer for the boards I have planed here..Good luck on your chair builds..

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Bravo! Love this thread. Build the tools then build the furniture- it doesn't get much more Neander than that.

[Mike Holbrook]

Nice Derek,
I am not sure why Galbert came up with the 6 degree reamer. Maybe less angle to the sides decreases the chance of splitting? I remember covering it in his class but not the detail. Schwarz and Langsner use the Veritas offerings. You might be able to use the blade from the Veritas tenon cutter to make your own/improved tenon cutter. The Veritas blade is fairly heavy duty and held in place with two screws. Now I will have to go figure out what steel the blade is made from?

Does not say what the blades are made from in the LV description. There are different size blades for cutting different size tenons. There is even a curved blade for make straight tenons with a curved base.

Then there are the tenon cutters made to work on a drill press or hand drill, with removable blades.

[Bob Glenn]

I was one of those who recommended a 6 degree tapered leg. I wouldn't worry about cutting a taper in maple, since that will be the least of your worries after saddling a maple seat. Nice looking tools BTW. Now the trick is getting all the leg angles to match. Go slow with the reamer and check the angles frequently.

I think an improvement to that style reamer would be to leave the tip of the reamer with a 5/8 inch straight diameter end, which is the size of the hole I bore in the seat. If you aren't careful when steering the reamer to change the taper angle, you can make the mortise oval.

[Brian Holcombe]

That is another advantage to a single blade steel reamer, you can steer it way more effectively than the wooden job which loads up constantly and does not steer well in harder woods.