How To Make Lathe Tool Handles

Add an oil finish if you like but rub it out good with the lathe spinning.

How to make lathe tool handles. Put on a full-face shield and set the lathes speed between 400 and 600 rpm. Use the tailstock hand crank to feed the drill bit into the handle. Now youre ready to mount the tool to your new handle.

This needs to be a press fit. Many quality tools these days come without a handle. I first reduced the diameter of one end until the ferrule would just tap on tightly.

The next part was the most difficult. Its a fairly simple matter to make a wooden handle. A file on it with the lathe run-ning about 1000 rpm.

You can watch a video I put together called How to Make Wood Handles for Wood Lathe Tools it involves taking a small dead tree trunk and turning it into a cylindrical blank to be used for a wood lathe tool handle club mallet or whatever you might desire. It amounts to turning a spindle drilling a hole to accept the tool and then using epoxy to hold it in place. -either buy a tool blank or make your own and insert and glue into the handle.

It is standard practice to add a ferrule or the equivalent for extra strength where the tool joins the handle. -use a piece of copper pipe as a ferrule when the tool inserts into the wood handle. Put the bit against the handle into the hole from the center and turn the lathe on slow speed.

There should be little or no ghosting at the ferrule end. I mounted the handle blank in the lathe and turned down one end until the ferrule fit. Ad Easy to Use - Laser Fits in Spindle 4-Axis 00002 resolutn Fast Setup.