Tappered Reamers

[Richard Gillespie]

On a recent episode of Woodwrigt's Shop (new to me) Roy and a guest host showed the use of a tappered reamer to cut a beveled hole in arms for a bow fret saw. Anyone know the source of such a tool?

[Salem Ganzhorn]

Lee Valley sells one. You can also make your own. I made mine by turning a taper on the lathe, cuttIng grooves with a backsaw and using epoxy to embed sections of bandsaw blade into the taper. I sharpened the blades like scrapers. Worked pretty good.Salem

[robert dankert]

http://www.greenwoodworking.com/SawSteelTaperedReamerPlans

[Patrick Tipton]

+1 on Robert's Greenwoodworking plans. I made mine for making tapered mortises in chair legs from the John/Jenny Alexander plans. The first one worked OK. The second one works great. I made the blade from a keyhole saw. I originally spent too little time polishing the saw blade and so it was rough and would tear out the grain a bit in the mortise. I subsequently polished it like a cabinet scraper and raised a burr and it cuts a nice taper now.

[Trevor Walsh]

bowsaw arms, was it a tiny tiny tapered reamer? They sell a machinst item in the harware store for enlarging holes in sheet metal etc. which might fit the bill. It tapers from 1/8" to 1/2" over about 5 inches or so.

[Patrick Tipton]

Another source for smaller reamers is peg reamers for cello's and violins. They aren't cheap, but they work great.

Regards, Patrick

[Dave McCammon]

http://www.handtoolwoodworking.com/tools.html Elias has also been on his show and teaches at the Woodwright's School. You can also see one of these reamers in use by Curtis Buchanan on Youtube.

[george wilson]

You can get "Taper pin reamers" cheaper than musical instrument peg reamers. They are old fashioned machinist's reamers for putting in tapered pins that hold handles on. They have been supplanted by roll pins these days. Best if you can find them among old machinist's chests in pawn shops. I think they still sell them,and they come in several sizes. I hardly ever use mine,and can't tell you off hand what size you need. Google around for info.

The best reamers really are the ones for violins,etc. They have teeth (flutes) only on 1 side. The other side is a blank taper. You can move the hole sideways if you need to,from drilling it a bit off. Keep the blank side of the reamer to one side of the hole,and twist the reamer back and forth enough to span the distance between the flutes. The hole will move toward the side the flutes are on.

Reamers with flutes all the way around will tend to cut 6 sides holes (if they have 6 flutes) ,especially in wood.

A tapered wooden reamer with a tapered steel cutter made from a saw blade,set into a slit in the reamer works surprisingly well,too. The metal cutter can't get out of place while the reamer is in the hole,so it doesn't need to be glued or fastened in place.

I make my own tapered reamers from tool steel,and grind them into exactly half round. They have 1 cutting edge,and give smooth results,better than any other type reamer I have tried.

[Zach England]

I seem to recall seeing some in the "traditional woodworker" catalog I got in the mail the other day.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

Was the guest Willard (Bill) Anderson? If so, he specifically recommends the Brown and Sharpe No. 2 tapered reamer in his "Make a Shapely Bowsaw" article in the Nov 2011 issue of PWM.

[David Weaver]

You can get a junky machinist's tapered reamer from places like grizzly and anyone else that imports not-so-great tools for cheap.

The deficiency of those reamers is that they aren't very hard (which makes them get mealed up cutting tapers when making planes), and the taper is gradual, which might not be enough for wood, and they are small, so if you need one that will do a large dowel, then they're not going to be big enough.

But they are cheap and will work wood just fine if they fit your needs.

[David Weaver]

Here is a link to a page with the one that Meagan mentioned.
http://www.fdtool.com/cubecart/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=20715


And here is the cheapo grizzly I referenced, though even cheaper than the $11 one that I ordered (which claimed to be hardened, but doesn't seem like it is), it should still be OK for wood.
http://grizzly.com/products/H5890

[Bob Stroupe]

I've heard of using tapered files as reamers.
Here is a clipping from an old magazine article depicting a handy man way to taper homemade violin tuning pegs.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6218/6282172062_96961c033b_m.jpg
I saved this picture because I was planning to put the taper on a wooden peg hole reamer this way, but then grizzly had a close out sale on the peg hole reamers they used to sell. I ended up buying one of those and never did try this method myself...