One of the members of my turning club wanted to see a demo of a chatter tool that one could make from bits found around the shop. Since I did not have a chatter tool to do the demo with, I made one from things I found in various bins in my shop.
It is 24.765cm [9.75"] long (w/o the blade), the ferrel is a brass compression fitting nut that is screwed on and turned smooth, the handle is turned from a scrap piece of Mulberry wood and decorated with a few friction burns from a wire, the shaft is a piece of steel rod from an ink-jet printer that the ink trolley rides on, the blade holder is a bushing (mated to the shaft with a roll-pin), and the chatter blades are just jigsaw blades, ground to shape and bent a little. It works best with the rear screw in place and the front one removed.
It seems to work quite well at around 1000 rpm, on end-grain hardwood.
The price was right in that all the pieces were already in the shop, and not being used for anything else.
