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I'm trying to cut rings on a bent bull dog. I can cut rings on a straight bulldog with my mini-lathe readily but I am just not fast enough to move the tool in and out and avoid the shank spinning around on a bent

I know I can mark it with a pencil and then hit it with a dremel after its off the lathe but I would not end up with two nice crisp lines, close to each other, this way. I can envision building a tool to cut them while on the lathe but I am not set up for tool building, is this something I can purchase?

Without a metal lathe is there any better way to do this than my thoughts, that someone might clue me in on? PM works as well.

Many Thanks,
Bill

Do you have a grinder? I make my own tools by grinding down old long handled alan wrenches. I grind them down to just a nub at the 90 so it fits in tight places then flatten the profile to the thickness of the ring I want then cut a relief on it. You're basically making a parting tool out of it. You can mount the alan wrench on a handle or do what I do which is clamp it in a pair of vice grips. I use the alan wrenches that come with furniture and whatnot that you have to assemble.

Wow Wayne... alan wrenches?! You sir have some ghetto pride...

wdteipen wrote:Do you have a grinder? I make my own tools by grinding down old long handled alan wrenches. I grind them down to just a nub at the 90 so it fits in tight places then flatten the profile to the thickness of the ring I want then cut a relief on it. You're basically making a parting tool out of it. You can mount the alan wrench on a handle or do what I do which is clamp it in a pair of vice grips. I use the alan wrenches that come with furniture and whatnot that you have to assemble.

Excellent, thanks so much Wayne! I can't beleive I didn't think of that. I was thinking of taking a real wide flat tip screw driver and grinding that all up but an alan is perfect, and probably harder which is a good thing too.

Wayne, can you post a picture of your tool? I have been up since 4 this morning and am having a bit of trouble picturing it in my head.

scotties22 wrote:Wayne, can you post a picture of your tool?

Scottie, this is a family forum, okay babe?

NAAAAAAHHHHHH....you can't tell if things have been photo shopped or not in a picture

Women are bad at math because we've always been told 3 inches is really 6

I've just recently found that the pics that are used to open up walnuts and such work great. They're cheap and can be ground and bent and sharpened easily.

I also use the same technique as Wayne, works fine on a mini-lathe since you can get into the bent part with a tool working at any angle you want!

Growley wrote:I've just recently found that the pics that are used to open up walnuts and such work great. They're cheap and can be ground and bent and sharpened easily.

The minute you posted that Brian I realized I use to use Dental pics all the time when restoring pipes which are basically the same tool and you can buy them by the boxes at flea markets. Thanks for posting that, will need to find my dental pics after work.

billiard wrote:

Growley wrote:I've just recently found that the pics that are used to open up walnuts and such work great. They're cheap and can be ground and bent and sharpened easily.

The minute you posted that Brian I realized I use to use Dental pics all the time when restoring pipes which are basically the same tool and you can buy them by the boxes at flea markets. Thanks for posting that, will need to find my dental pics after work.

Yep, I've got a dental pic too. The metal is probably better. Mine had a rounded edge though and was too thin to sharpen. Both should work great if you get the right edge on them and cut away a relief so you don't burn the wood.

Files are hard, hard metal, so if you get a little set of what's called rifflers, you can use them in this way too. They'll last longer than a pick, and you can sharpen them if you so desire.

I bought a cobalt rod of 5mm diam. and grind its end into a parting tool of 1.1mm, then I put it to a handle I turned.

Thanks everyone, I'm good to go now