Can a decent clamping type knurl tool be made out of a tubing cutter?

wrote:

Can a decent clamping type knurl tool be made out of a tubing cutter?

A very small one, perhaps. I have such a tool, commercially made, and it
is about the half the size of the common clamp knurling tools. It is
intended to be held by hand, NOT clamped into the tool post. it has a
'tail' that needs to be braced against something to prevent the whole
tool from rotating under load. It works fairly well with some practice,
for very small work (about 3/4 inch diam. is it's limit). The knurl
wheels are also much smaller than standard knurls (perhaps a half inch
diameter). Still, it's all steel construction, unlike the pot metal of
most tubing cutters.

You would probably have a lot better luck starting with a heavy duty
forged or cast pipe cutter, rather than a tubing cutter.

Dan Mitchell
============

With a larger forged pipe cutter, If I replace the cutter with a knurl,
Keep the rollers on, figure out a way to mount it to a tool post on the
lathe, do you think it would work?

wrote in message
ups.com...
With a larger forged pipe cutter, If I replace the cutter with a knurl,
Keep the rollers on, figure out a way to mount it to a tool post on the
lathe, do you think it would work?

Replace all three with knurls, lest you smash your nice pattern on every
rotation.

LLoyd

Daniel A. Mitchell wrote:
wrote:

Can a decent clamping type knurl tool be made out of a tubing cutter?

A very small one, perhaps. I have such a tool, commercially made, and it
is about the half the size of the common clamp knurling tools. It is
intended to be held by hand, NOT clamped into the tool post. it has a
'tail' that needs to be braced against something to prevent the whole
tool from rotating under load. It works fairly well with some practice,
for very small work (about 3/4 inch diam. is it's limit). The knurl
wheels are also much smaller than standard knurls (perhaps a half inch
diameter). Still, it's all steel construction, unlike the pot metal of
most tubing cutters.

You would probably have a lot better luck starting with a heavy duty
forged or cast pipe cutter, rather than a tubing cutter.

Dan Mitchell
============

Maybe he has a real Ridgid pipe cutter, the kind that weighs about 15 pounds. - GWE

wrote:

With a larger forged pipe cutter, If I replace the cutter with a knurl,
Keep the rollers on, figure out a way to mount it to a tool post on the
lathe, do you think it would work?

"Clamp" type knurlers work one knurl against another one, on opposite
sides of the work. A plane roller on the back side would crush the knurl
almost as fast as it's generated, and make a mess. The free floating
kind, as I discussed earlier and you propose, use TWO knurls on the back
side (like a pipe cutter) so they will self center on the work.

Another problem is that knurls are usually a lot thicker than the cutter
wheel in a pipe cutter, and thus would not fit without removing
considerable material from the wheel-frame of the pipe cutter. This
might seriously weaken the cutter frame (knurling requires considerable
pressure).

A single point knurl can be used in a lathe, but puts a LOT of strain on
the headstock bearings, the cross slide leadscrew, and the whole
carriage assembly (especially on smaller lathes). That's why "clamp"
knurlers are popular with smaller lathes.

Dan Mitchell
============

"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
Daniel A. Mitchell wrote:
wrote:

Can a decent clamping type knurl tool be made out of a tubing cutter?

It is probably possible to put ballet slippers and a tutu on an elephant and
teach it to dance Swan Lake .. but why would you want to?

Decent working, knurling tools aren't that expensive and it would be easier
to machine one from scratch than to attempt forcing a pipe cutter to the
job.

Boris

--

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1232 Glenbrook Road on Software Testing and
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TEL: 215-572-5580
FAX: 215-886-0144
Email bsquare "at" sprintmail.com

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Daniel A. Mitchell Jun 10, 1:12 pm show options

Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
From: "Daniel A. Mitchell" - Find messages by
this author
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 13:12:52 -0400
Local: Fri,Jun 10 2005 1:12 pm
Subject: Knurling tool
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wrote:
With a larger forged pipe cutter, If I replace the cutter with a knurl,
Keep the rollers on, figure out a way to mount it to a tool post on the
lathe, do you think it would work?


"Clamp" type knurlers work one knurl against another one, on opposite
sides of the work. A plane roller on the back side would crush the
knurl
almost as fast as it's generated, and make a mess. The free floating
kind, as I discussed earlier and you propose, use TWO knurls on the
back
side (like a pipe cutter) so they will self center on the work.

Another problem is that knurls are usually a lot thicker than the
cutter
wheel in a pipe cutter, and thus would not fit without removing
considerable material from the wheel-frame of the pipe cutter. This
might seriously weaken the cutter frame (knurling requires considerable

pressure).


A single point knurl can be used in a lathe, but puts a LOT of strain
on
the headstock bearings, the cross slide leadscrew, and the whole
carriage assembly (especially on smaller lathes). That's why "clamp"
knurlers are popular with smaller lathes.

Good advice, to see a homebuilt knurling tool, check out:

http://engineman69.home.comcast.net/knurl.html

Engineman

In article ,
Doug Warner wrote:

But how can they work?

As long as we're on the subject, can anyone tell me how knurlers can
produce an even pattern around the workpiece when the pitch of the
knurling roller doesn't divide evenly into the circumference of the
work? Also circumference changes as the wheels dig in deeper, which
makes it less likely..

Agreed. So if you *start* with a perfect match, you *should* end
up without one as you dig deeper -- absent a self-correcting behaviour
of the knurls pulling to lock into the previous depressions.

Or is that it, you apply enough pressure so the work circumference
becomes an even multiple of the knurl pitch and the pattern evens out?

That appears to match my experience. Or at least the knurl
rollers pull slightly ahead or behind to match the previous rotation once
the knurl is deep enough. I start out deep (feeding on from the end
when possible), and I have no problems.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
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On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:24:03 -0400, Doug Warner
wrote:


But how can they work?

As long as we're on the subject, can anyone tell me how knurlers can
produce an even pattern around the workpiece when the pitch of the
knurling roller doesn't divide evenly into the circumference of the
work? Also circumference changes as the wheels dig in deeper, which
makes it less likely..
Or is that it, you apply enough pressure so the work circumference
becomes an even multiple of the knurl pitch and the pattern evens out?

Quite often I get a repeated pattern of a wider groove from both
knurls where they seem to adjust their tracking.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

Doug Warner wrote:
But how can they work?

As long as we're on the subject, can anyone tell me how knurlers can
produce an even pattern around the workpiece when the pitch of the
knurling roller doesn't divide evenly into the circumference of the
work? Also circumference changes as the wheels dig in deeper, which
makes it less likely..
Or is that it, you apply enough pressure so the work circumference
becomes an even multiple of the knurl pitch and the pattern evens out?



To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@"
Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
They work by the 'teeth' of the knurling wheel slipping into sync with
the workpiece. If you start a knurl with a gentle pressure, there is a
high probability that the newly formed pattern won't be in sync when it
meets the old, and you get a 'crossed' knurl.
If you increase the pressure slightly you just reinforce the mismatch.

If, however, you start the knurl with a good hard pressure, the knurling
wheel slips into sync with the existing pattern and you start to get a
nicely defined knurl. Added pressure simply reinforces the existing
pattern and you can continue the operation until its deep enough.
If you get a crossed knurl early on, you can often rescue it by suddenly
applying lots of pressure to force the teeth of the wheel(s) to slip
into the valleys of the existing pattern. It has to be sudden so that
when the wheel meets the 'new' valleys, they are deep enough to force
the teeth to slip into them rather than create new ones.
Try it and you'll see that it works just like that.

--

Regards, Gary Wooding
(To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address)

"Doug Warner" wrote in message
...

But how can they work?

As long as we're on the subject, can anyone tell me how knurlers can
produce an even pattern around the workpiece when the pitch of the
knurling roller doesn't divide evenly into the circumference of the
work? Also circumference changes as the wheels dig in deeper, which
makes it less likely..

Or is that it, you apply enough pressure so the work circumference
becomes an even multiple of the knurl pitch and the pattern evens out?
^^^^^^^^^^

Yup.
LLoyd




To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@"
Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 13:42:48 GMT, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
wrote:


"Doug Warner" wrote in message
.. .

But how can they work?

As long as we're on the subject, can anyone tell me how knurlers can
produce an even pattern around the workpiece when the pitch of the
knurling roller doesn't divide evenly into the circumference of the
work? Also circumference changes as the wheels dig in deeper, which
makes it less likely..

Or is that it, you apply enough pressure so the work circumference
becomes an even multiple of the knurl pitch and the pattern evens out?
^^^^^^^^^^

Yup.
LLoyd

Its all done by FM.

Gunner





To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@"
Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.


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