Favourtie Finishing Tools

Will, you can bet your last penny or cent that David did not recommend to smooth the inside of a bore with a file (be it a Swiss one or from somewhere else! )

Greetings, Hansrudolf

personal favorite?

Got to be....drum roll.... diamond burnisher...hardens and polishes in one

Will,

I'm afraid Hansrudolf is quite right - I was not suggesting use of a file inside a bore, that would be doomed to awful results. I was suggesting making the bore (reamer, boring head, hone, whatever) and then adjusting the shaft to suit using a very fine file. I apologise if this was not clear.

Don't try this using the bog standard files described as "medium" or "fine" ; these are suitable for metal removal but not for fine surface finishing. Genuine Swiss files of the finest quality come in numbered cuts, 0 to 6 - mostly the even numbers only are found, one occasionally sees odd numbers. I use for preference a No 6 cut hand file; this has a rectangular section and one safe edge (but check it - may need slight attention from a stone) and leaves a finish like the finest cylindrical grinder. I can easily take less than a tenth off the diameter, and the amount is small enough that it's reasonably easy to maintain parallelism.

You will find that genuine Swiss files (and I don't mean the titchy needle files often called Swiss files even though most of them aren't) are hard to find, and the No 6 cut is the hardest of all; when you do find them, the price may take your breath away. The only source I could find in 5 minutes Googling was

**LINK**

And look under "Files - Pillar Standard (Swiss Vallorbe)" for the 150 mm No 6 cut - £35.65 + VAT. I tend to keep a couple of spares in stock as they don't last forever and are hard to find. You can get nearly as good a result with a No 4 cut, bit easier to find (and cheaper). Keep clean (bit of brass run along the grooves is the best - the brass will soon acquire a set of teeth to match the file's tooth profile).

The steel/brass thing is important. If you want to use a file on brass, never use it on steel, this will very slightly take the keen edge off the teeth and then it will skid badly over brass.The counsel of perfection is to save a new file for brass, then demote it to steel when it starts to lose its first freshness.

Always use a handle when using a file on a moving part in a lathe; your wrists are at serious risk if you don't. Holding the part in a collet is strongly preferred as there are no nasty chuck jaws to hurt you.

For fine finishing of bores, I suggest you use a cylinder hone or a lap; I'll leave you to research that topic.

David

Edited By David Littlewood on 11/08/2012 12:29:53

> they don't last forever

But if treated well they do l;ast a long time. Worth having 1 or 2 for special jobs and use the 'cheap ones' as semi-disposables for such verboten activities as beveling edges on things in the chuck.

Neil

Neil,

I agree, I was thinking in terms of a few years... My current No 4 has been in use for over 20 years, but it is no longer any use on brass and is getting a bit tired now, but still works OK on MS

David

Does anybody use Ifanger turning tools?

I have several of them ranging in size from 0000 - 3 (internal boring & threading) and 1-3 (external turning and threading). I find I can get a mirror finish on stainless 316 without a problem, only thing is they are hard to find here and when you do they aren't cheap.

I would love to find a #2 holder like this one

Kiwi

Ian, the only source of ,'Ifanger tools' I know of in the European area is Brutsch Reugger in Switzerland.

My last dealings with them they wanted a minimum order of Sf 500. Their catalogue is something you will study avidly as it contains superlative tools and equipment.

Clive

Clive, that surprises me as Ifanger is European based so I would have thought it would be quite common.

I have the Aussie Diamond tool holder and while I find it a nice tool, I have often wondered if it was copied off Ifanger tooling.

I wonder if the #2 threading holder is still available and what the price of it is, the #3 holder in NZ is around $1k, if it was signficantly cheaper I'd look at buying one.

Ian

Similar tooling has been around for over a hundred years, as far as I know, there is an example in vol., 1 of Model Engineer in 1898. Ian S C

Hi Ian,

I too liked the look of that tool, well the insert part of it, so I made my own version.

But as I have a GHT retracting holder already, and forgive the blasphemy, I was not impressed with its benefits so I made it fit a clapper box (also known as a swing up) style threading holder.

Judging by the prices of genuine Ifanger I am glade I made my own.

Just as an aside, I made one of my tangential tools for a Swiss friend who uses Ifanger and apparently it gives a better finish than his home grown and expensive variety, but I have not seen for myself yet., so only hearsay.

chriStephens

PS it was making the insert for this tool that I found how easy it is to mill bog standard bits of HSS with carbide end mills.

Hi Ian,

You are quite correct, it seems that there is little new really. Here is a picture taken from a book written by C P B Shelley called 'Workshop Appliances' it has a rather long subtitle which the Victorians loved but I will not write it here. Rather looks like a Diamond Tangential holder to me, what do you think?

Sorry about the quality it was a small picture. This came from the 8th edition of the book which was published in 1888 and it seems that this styleof tool holder was an established and common design even then. It must have been around for many years in that form. The book by the way is fabulous and most of the content is quite relevant today.

By the way, the subtitle is 23 words long, most of those are long and impressive

Best regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 14/10/2012 17:38:05

hi kiwi

M.T.I QUALOS 55 NORTHERN ROAD WEST HEIDELBERG VIC 3081 AUSTRALIA

TEL 03-94501900. IJUST BOUGHT THE RS 2