Thread: A Handy Countersink

Nice one. I bought one from LV a few years ago for similar stuff but yours is better on many levels!
The bigger knob allows more control and home made tools are always a winner for me.

Nice one.
I think I may have to blatantly copy that.
That would be so handy for those one of quick jobs.

Cheers Matt


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One little trick with these if you are going to make one.... Make sure you use a countersink made for hand use rather than a machine countersink.

The cutting angles and profiles from the hand cutter are a different from the machine version.

Nicely done Rob!

This image revives a theme I've had on an off for awhile about a picture I though I saw somewhere. I had a feeling it was a Chistopher Schwarz article but all searches I have made so far I haven't been able to find it again. It may have had something to do with turning, or maybe chairmaking, who knows.

Anyway to the point, my memory image has a lot of (instead of counter sinks) old style brace centre bits mounted in such handles suspended above a bench. I've been wondering what good use could be made of these centre bits mounted in tool handles. The counter sink is intuitive, but centre bits?

Cheers,
Franklin

Fuzzy, T handles . . .

Hi Pat, I wasn't wondering so much how to hold the tool, but what the tool would be used for when held in a tool handle rather than a brace. I doubt enough torque could be applied with a simple handle to actually bore a hole. Am I missing something in my understanding of your reply?
Cheers,

The only thing I can think of with the center bits having a handle is for gently and slowly deepening a hole. I cant think of any other reason for wanting it apart from that.

I remember standing looking at a restorers bench in a workshop in Ballarat twenty five years ago.
In the center of the first shelf up off the bench was a row of screws of different sizes all with the slotted heads cut off. I didn't ask what they were used for and wished I had for years after that visit.
I just came to the conclusion that they must have been for tapping a new hole with the right size screw in a drill. You would drill the hole then drive the screw in , withdraw it and this would save the work of having to drive them in by hand. It was pretty much pre cordless and bugle screw days . And the Antique guys still stick with the soft metal slotted screw type.

So I started trying it out when the need arose and it was a good idea, but I never needed it enough for a set to be made and sat in front of me at the bench , so I was still scratching my head a little??

One day I got a special restoration job of an above standard Victorian Cuban Mahogany extension table.( I will put pictures in the restoration section here on forum one day. You don't see many true Cuban solid extension tables like this one). So this table needed the two end tops re fitted, all the old holes were filled with wood , the tops re positioned and marked for new holes , top flipped and drilled for new screws , which we had to make/ adapt from new coach screws , these were like 14G x 3.5 to 4 inch, or close to that. Then I tapped the holes with a screw with a T handle welded on rather than risk driving it in with the cordless. A touch to far and I would be breaking through the top. This made fitting them from underneath easy rather than driving them into the hard old Cuban by hand, while lying on my back under the table .

It was well worth the small job of making it. Only one use doing the roughly 36 holes holding the tops on this table though.

Hers an out of focus picture of it . Next to an adapted screw.

IMG_7676.jpg

Rob

They're bottle openers, if ever there was one!

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

This image revives a theme I've had on an off for awhile about a picture I though I saw somewhere. I had a feeling it was a Chistopher Schwarz article but all searches I have made so far I haven't been able to find it again. It may have had something to do with turning, or maybe chairmaking, who knows.

Anyway to the point, my memory image has a lot of (instead of counter sinks) old style brace centre bits mounted in such handles suspended above a bench. I've been wondering what good use could be made of these centre bits mounted in tool handles. The counter sink is intuitive, but centre bits?

Cheers,
Franklin

Reviving an old thread, I tripped across the picture that I had in my mind, hiding in full view of course. It is the cover picture of the Scott Landis "The Workbench Book" The handled tools in question are the first six hanging in the window on the lefthand side. The picture is not great. I'll dig out the book and check who's bench it is.

They look to be the bits used in a Bow Drill Franklin . Something I don't know very much about . Ive never used one . Funny how the mind finally solves a problem . The truth always comes out

Here is a pic
https://www.google.com.au/imgres?img...act=mrc&uact=8

Rob

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

The picture is not great. I'll dig out the book and check who's bench it is.

I’ll save you the digging - the book is lying on my coffee table at the moment

The credit for the front cover says “With the permission of Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.”

I can sleep again at night!

I don't remember any shop set up that well at Hancock Shaker Village, but it is quite a few years since I visited, not counting in May this year when I rocked up to the car park and found it was a week before it opened for the season!