Richard Findley uses the skills from the exercises in the previous issues to make two different tool handle designs with just a skew chisel
Over the last three articles, I have looked at the techniques of using a skew chisel including peeling, planing and slicing cuts with the aim of familiarising and perhaps making friends with your skew chisel. In this article, I am going to begin to pull those skills together into a series of skew chisel projects, starting with tool handles.
The ubiquitous tool handle project appears in the magazine at least once a year as an ideal beginner’s project, this time though the challenge is to use only your skew chisel. Here I will take you through two designs using the skills you will have been practising if you have followed along with the series so far.
Design
Generally speaking, I am happy to use manufacturers’ wooden handles on my turning tools so I don’t need to make a turning tool handle, but I do have a couple of vintage 10tpi thread chasers I picked up recently that are in need of handles and I am itching to give them a go. The other design I will make is of one of my favourite homemade tools that I regularly use: a screwdriver with interchangeable tips. I like to keep designs simple, as I find too much detail in a tool handle is less comfortable in the hand than long, smooth, flowing curves, but feel free to adapt these designs to suit your taste and skill level.
The most notable difference between the two designs is the use of a ferrule, but when should a ferrule be used, or not? The main purpose of a ferrule is to prevent the wooden handle from splitting as the metal tool is driven into it, especially when a tool has a tang, which is usually wedge-shaped and acts as such when the tool is fitted, so the ferrule is used to reinforce the wood. For my screwdriver, I fitted the metal to the wood at an early stage and there was little to no chance of the wood splitting, so I saw no need to add one. If you like the appearance of a ferrule though, feel free to use one for purely decorative purposes.
Timber preparation
I had some offcuts from a recent job of some lovely prime, quartersawn oak which would be ideal for these small handles. Based on handles that I’ve made before, a difference in diameter by just a few millimetres can feel quite different in the hand. I began by ripping the oak to 38mm square and cutting the blanks to 160mm long. I later shortened the screwdriver blank to 145mm.
The first job, sometimes overlooked in tool handle articles, was to drill the hole for the tool. If you do this later, there is no guarantee the tool will be straight or central in the handle, which won’t help you put screws in straight or cut perfectly hand-chased threads. By drilling the hole first, all turning is done using the hole as a centre and so it has to be central, even if the drill wanders a little off centre.
There are two options for drilling, depending on your chuck jaw selection. Here I frequently used my engineering-style stepped jaws. These are incredibly useful, especially because I have a solid headstock on my old Wadkin lathe and can’t use a knockout bar to remove a drill chuck, so to be able to hold timber or drill bits of various sizes, in the chuck, is a real advantage. The only drawback with this style of jaw is that they are vicious if you get your hands too close to them, so I am very selective about the jobs I use them for.
The first option for drilling is to hold the wood in the chuck. This is the most accurate method as long as you can safely hold the wood in your chuck jaws. I have a drill chuck in the tailstock and simply wound the drill bit into the wood, taking it slowly, running at around 500rpm, and regularly clearing the drill bit of shavings. Winding in the drill bit too fast and at too high a speed is a recipe for wonky holes.
The second option is to hold the drill bit in the chuck and advance the wood on to the drill, either freehand or – for higher levels of accuracy – by using the tailstock and winding it forward. This helps keep everything centred. This works fine on smaller holes but is less safe with larger bits without a jig to stabilise the wood.
Screwdriver handle
The screwdriver part is a 150mm extension piece for a drill- driver so has a standard hex fitting on the end of an 11mm shaft. To get the best fit for the metal part, I drilled a stepped hole, 7mm for the hex section of the bit (the hex is 6.5mm on the flats and 7mm across the corners so 7mm means there is contact right to the end) and 11mm for around 25mm of the tool shaft, so the tool had a tight fit into the handle around 55mm deep in all. I drilled the 11mm hole first, around 25mm deep, then changed the drill to a 7mm bit and drilled down to 55mm. It followed perfectly centrally.
I applied some epoxy resin into the holes and on to the hex section of the bit and then fitted the driver part into the handle. I have found epoxy the perfect adhesive for wood-to-metal joins. I put another offcut of timber on the bench and hammered the handle on to the driver, rather than hit the driver with a metal hammer and risk damaging it. The sound of the hammer changes as the driver seats firmly home into the handle. The epoxy should take 30 minutes to cure but I left it overnight before turning. No good ever comes from rushing a glue-up.
Turning
With the epoxy cured and the driver bit secured in the wood, it was time to turn the handle to shape. I put the driver part in the stepped jaws of my chuck and brought up the live centre. I let the wood find its own centre rather than marking the centre of the wood and trying to line it up with the live centre. The wood was naturally aligned to the driver bit so would run perfectly. I opted for my Signature beading and parting tool as my skew of choice for this handle.
You can choose whether or not to rough the timber down with your skew or a roughing gouge – I did it with my skew. It is simply a planing cut, just make sure you start near the centre and work out to the ends to prevent any large splinters being lifted up and thrown at you. After planing in both directions and getting the handle to a cylinder, I set out the handle with a series of peeling cuts with my Vernier callipers, sizing each end to 32mm and planing the handle to match all the way along. At the left-hand end I then did another peeling, sizing cut to 22mm. I peeled a section at the tailstock end around 15mm long as waste, which allowed working space at the end of the handle, and I marked a line with my pencil around 35mm from the end, which would be the thickest part of the handle.
With the marking out done, I added a little shape with a planing cut down to the narrowest part at the driver end, returned to the end of the handle and began to form the rounded shape. This was an elongated bead so I began by slicing a chamfer and then, using the tip of the tool, I began to roll the rounded top with a slicing cut. I used a planing cut from the pencil line so it gently curved from the pencil line and rounded at the end.
When I turn something like a table leg, I will work along the turning doing one shape after the other, then blending any long sweeps at the end with a tool handle. It is less about having a bead here and a cove there – there is some feel to it, so I move from one end to the other more than I would during a production job, balancing the shape, refining and blending and making sure it fits the hand well.
Moving back to where the handle meets the driver, I used a slicing cut to form a gently curving shoulder down to the metal tool. This left it neat and crisp and removed any excess epoxy on the end grain of the wood. Take this cut slowly and smoothly, keeping control as you go. You will almost certainly touch the tip of the tool on the metal. When you do, go to the grinder and sharpen it again, it will take seconds – as long as you cut slowly. If you were heavy-handed and bullied the tool through the wood and into the metal you will have damaged the edge of your skew and it will take more grinding. A delicate, controlled cut is important throughout the process. Done well, you will have a very neat curve where the wood meets the driver and the tool handle will be clean and crisp.
With both ends of the handle almost done, the next part was to blend the two together using a planing cut. This was the last exercise in Part 2, planing a long, flowing curve. Plane downhill in both directions, gently forming the hollow curve, keeping the cut just below the middle of the edge of the tool. The narrowest part of my handle was 17mm. Once I felt it was looking about right, I stopped the lathe and tested it out. I was happy with the result but if you need to refine more, take a little more off. Once happy I sanded from 180 to 320, finishing with a red abrasive pad.
The last step was to remove the waste. It was quite straightforward on this handle because it was securely held in the chuck, so I turned the waste down with a peeling cut and then, using the tip of the tool, I formed a V-cut very close to the end of the handle. I continued this series of slicing V or curving cuts until the waste dropped off. Make sure you don’t put any pressure on the end of the handle with the tool so as not to mark the wood or crush the end grain fibres as this will leave a permanent mark on the wood. I drew back the tailstock so it was out of the way and used a final slicing cut to remove any small nib still be on the handle before blending with the abrasive.
Chasing handles
As with the screwdriver, the drilling is the first job. With a tapered tang, it is more difficult to know where to start. You can see from picture 12 that the thickness of the tool was 6.5mm, but the widest part of the tool was nearer 11mm, and an 11mm hole would not support the tool well, so I opted to begin with a 6.5mm hole and enlarge it later.
To show the other drilling technique, I put the drill bit in the chuck, marked the centres of the handle blanks, positioned them between the drill and the live centre and slowly wound them together using the hand wheel on the tailstock, drilling to around 50mm deep.
The next job is to address the ferrules. I had bought some 22mm steel tubing a few years ago to make ferrules and so it made sense to use it again here. I used my belt sander mounted on its side in a jig so it acts as an edge sander to clean the ends of the tube then cut off two 15mm pieces using my hacksaw and bench hook, once again tidying the cut ends on the sander. I used a small file to remove the burr from the inside so they would slide into place on the handles easily.
Turning
I mounted the handle between my small star drive and small live centre, with the live centre sitting in the drilled hole, as I outlined earlier, this centres the hole in the handle making for a better finished product.
As before, I roughed the blank down to a cylinder using a planing cut from my skew, taking it down to around 32mm in diameter. This time I opted to use my 19mm skew with rolled edges and a 7° skew, which is my next favourite after my Signature tool. I then measured the inside of the ferrule and set my Vernier callipers so I could make a peeling cut at the tailstock end of the blank. To take a peeling cut with the full 19mm of the tool is a very wide cut to make, so I divided it into a couple of smaller cuts, holding the handle at the slight angle so the edge of the tool produced a straight tenon on the handle. Stopping the lathe I test-fitted the ferrule and adjusted until it slid on with a pleasing friction fit. Too loose and the ferrule won’t do its job, so it needs to be just right. Then, using the tip of the long point, I took a slicing cut down the shoulder to leave the surface smooth and clean rather than torn as it would be straight from the peeling cut. I left the tenon a little over long so I could trim it up later.
I took another peeling cut at the headstock end, reducing a section around 15mm long for the waste and, by eye, I marked the centre of the handle and began to form the gently curving shape toward the top and down toward the ferrule. I took a few cuts in each direction and looked at the overall shape, allowing me to adjust the balance of the curve to suit the look and feel that I wanted. The top of the handle looked right at about 20mm diameter.
At the ferrule end, my aim was to take the curve down to neatly meet the ferrule. As I got closer to the correct diameter I adjusted the planing cut from the edge to the tip of the tool for extra control. Mass-produced handles generally just leave a step here, but as this is a quality, bespoke handle, I prefer to make the two parts meet perfectly. At this point, if you do over cut it, meaning the ferrule sits above the level of the curve, you can stop the lathe, pull the ferrule away from the shoulder and repeat the earlier slicing cut down the shoulder to increase the diameter at the meeting point and try again.
Once satisfied with the join between the handle and the ferrule, I turned my attention back to the end of the handle. Rather than a dead square end, I prefer a slight curve so, using the long point, I began to gently form a curve using a slicing cut. Once happy with the shape, but before the waste becomes too thin, it is a good time to sand. I worked through 180 to 320 grit, focusing only on the wood, and then used a piece of 800 grit on the steel ferrule to remove any marks and leave a lovely satin surface that contrasts well with the oak handle.
I used another slicing cut to remove the waste at the ferrule end, trimming the wood flush with the ferrule and slicing down to the live centre. Several lighter slices work better than one big one here. As you slice it clean you will likely touch the hardened steel of the live centre so once again, go and sharpen the tool on the grinder. I used to be very precious about blunting my tool like this but you get the best result by slicing right through and, as long as you do it gently and in a controlled manor, the damage to the tip of the tool will be minimal and will sharpen out very easily.
The last task at the lathe is to part off the handle. This is one turning task more easily done left-handed – right-handers make this look terribly awkward and sometimes unsafe by leaning over the headstock and chuck to support the work. As a left-hander, I can use my left hand on the handle of the tool and my right hand to support the work. I took a series of V-cuts, gradually reducing the amount of wood driving the handle. Always leave a small nib rather than trying to part directly against the end of the handle, as this will leave a hole or damaged grain which needs a lot of additional tidying. By leaving a small nib, this will chisel and sand away with ease. By parting at the drive end, the handle will simply stop spinning as it becomes detached from the drive. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this simply stop before it gets too thin and cut it off with a handsaw or on the bandsaw. A sanding disc on the lathe makes light work of blending and tidying the end of the handle, but not yet.
Fitting the tool
I fitted the ferrule permanently in place with epoxy resin. You will sometimes see a punch mark on the ferrule which holds it in place, but this is less neat and doesn’t work as well as epoxy in my experience.
To get the tool to fit into the handle, I needed to widen the 6.5mm hole to accept the tapered tang of the chasers. Holding the handle in my vice, I marked out an 11mm rectangle in the end of the handle and used a slender chisel and a mallet, followed by some careful paring to widen the drilled hole into a tapered rectangular hole. I dry-fitted the tool into the handle until I was satisfied that the fit was good.
The mechanics of driving the tang into the handle are usually enough to hold it in place, especially with a tool like a thread chaser that won’t experience any great leverage or twisting forces. But I like to do a belt-and-braces job so added a little epoxy into the hole before driving the handle firmly on to the chaser. I have a small engineering vice fitted with wooden jaws that is mounted on a base that, in turn, allows it to be held in my bench vice. This is ideal for gripping jobs such as this, the vice firmly held the chaser as I tapped the handle down firmly into place with my mallet. This will inevitably mark the end of the handle, which is why I didn’t sand it earlier. Now everything was fitted and in place, it was the ideal time to tidy the end of the handle on the sanding disc on the lathe.
The handles had four coats of hard wax oil applied and left to fully cure before they were put to work.
Conclusion
This appears to be a simple project but it employs many of the cuts practised in the exercises in the last couple of articles. I have tried to keep the terminology standardised so it is easy to refer back to the relevant cuts in the exercises and you can relate them to the cuts made to make the handles. In the next article we’ll look at another useful workshop tool: wooden mallets.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD FINDLEY