My First Home Made Tool

[Pete Jordan]

At the Trent Bosch demo he used a gun drill on his hollow forms. This is what I made today. A guy at our club sells the gun drill bits for $15 and I bought the blue valve at HF for a dollar. It works like a charm.

[Allen Neighbors]

What is a gun drill, and what's the blue valve for? It looks like it's an air connector. Does this thing somehow drill with air?
Also, I'm curious why, or how, he uses this on Hollowforms... Does he just drill to bottom depth in the center of the form, or does he somehow use the drill? to hollow with?
Really got my curiosity up... :)

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hey Pete what size bullets do you use???:eek::eek: Oh you said drill.:cool::rolleyes:;):p


Looks like it will do a great job. That will get the air deep into the HF.

[Pete Jordan]

What is a gun drill, and what's the blue valve for? It looks like it's an air connector. Does this thing somehow drill with air?
Also, I'm curious why, or how, he uses this on Hollowforms... Does he just drill to bottom depth in the center of the form, or does he somehow use the drill? to hollow with?
Really got my curiosity up... :)

Hi Allen,

A gun drill is used to drill holes in gun stock. It is hooked up to an air compressor and drills real smooth and the shavings come down the barrel of the bit. Trent just uses it to drill to the bottom of the hollow forms before he uses the cutting tools.

[Brent Pauba]

Very cool, looks great! I am kinda excited to make my own tools, it seems like its a hobby in itself.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Pete - that's pretty cool! Never heard of such a thing but it sure looks like it would work great!

[Tom Sherman]

Nice home made tool Pete. I love it when a plan comes together.

[Clem Wixted]

Pete,

Are those two little holes in the end of the tool?

Does the air go down one hole and push the wood dust out the other one?

Clem



At the Trent Bosch demo he used a gun drill on his hollow forms. This is what I made today. A guy at our club sells the gun drill bits for $15 and I bought the blue valve at HF for a dollar. It works like a charm.

[Pete Jordan]

Pete,

Are those two little holes in the end of the tool?

Does the air go down one hole and push the wood dust out the other one?

Clem

I'm not sure exactly how it works but here is the definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_drill

I know it works like a charm though.

[Scott Lux]

I love it when a plan comes together.

You forgot one thing:
http://www.geocities.com/mercilessraven/Pictures/Hannibal.jpg

[Paul Engle]

gun drills are made to have liquid coolant run thru them ( thus some styles have two holes - cool fluid in - hot fluid and metal chips out, some common ones are carbide for drilling cast iron with others for rifle/pistol barrels. they can be reshaped to use as a gouge also, as there is a single V flute maching into the shaft. I have one 10" x 1/2 " dia with 1/2" thick piece of carbide on the end reshaped w/ irish grind, the trick is the hole/s drilled, if they are ground to be kept away from the cutting edge. air piped in clears chips very nicely, fits my pipe collet handles very well and only needs sharpening once every 100 bowls on a 6"x 3/4" -80 grt wheel that cost 22$. Drill cost 100$. I dont recommed this for wood turning .only drilling as the carbide likes to cut better on high speed,also Bitmoore makes single flute drill bits that way out perform Fostner style. cut cleaner,dont burn, bottom nicely and no chip out , same design idea behind them no holes as these are for wood .

[Ben Gastfriend]

That looks great, and looks like it definitley works! Really cool.

[Jeff Dege]

I see that nobody (including wikipedia) has yet mentioned the odd geometry. Twist drills have a symmetric point, deep drills (gun drills) have an asymmetric point. The result, when drilling, is to leave a peak in the bottom of the hole, that serves to make the bit far less likely to wander.

When drilling 90 times the bit thickness, you can't rely on the stiffness of the bit to keep things lined up.

The other trick the gun smiths use is to hold the bit stationary and to rotate the work. This, also, works to keep the bit on-center as it drills.