Interested in having made a tenon sizing tool like the cardboard mockup pictured. Has anyone made something similar, if so what thickness metal? Can it peel small amount of wood from slightly oversized tenon?
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Tenon Sizing Tool
- Thread starter Don Stephan
- Start date
I made one from 1/8" sheet brass. It was pretty easy to make. I used a hacksaw and file to cut and clean up the notches. Being brass, I don't try to cut with it. But if you made one from steel plate, it would probably cut if sharp.
I'll wait to see if anyone has had it work, but based on caliper usage I would think that sharp point on the outer corners would be kinda grabby. Especially on ring porous wood like ash or red oak.
Dan, what I use on my spindle turnings are box wrenches. A set of open end wrenches has most if not all of the sizes you list, and you probably already have a set. I have noticed that some of my drill bits are not perfectly sized, so it is worth taking a few moments to ensure the combination of drill bit and wrench match. I find that most of the work can be handled with a minimum of tenon sizes, typically for me is 1/4 and 1/2".
This has made making spindle turning much easier, most common use case is for tenons to hold finials or the like.
This has made making spindle turning much easier, most common use case is for tenons to hold finials or the like.
Coincidentally, talking about these gauges with folks on another forum. May be more of a Brit thing than North American, anyway I am going to make one. In this video on duplicating a finial, you can see it being used a lot. diameter gauge
This was posted to the other forum by someone who is also a member here (thanks Bob)
This was posted to the other forum by someone who is also a member here (thanks Bob)
Woodpeckers did a one-time Paolini Planer Gauge several years ago--some sort of phenolic, very similar design. I don't recall the pricing but it was reasonable enough that i bought one and it's hanging from my planer. Hadn't though about it for sizing tenons, but i've been using collet chucks for spindles recently--great application. Can't find a picture on Woodpeckers website, happy to take a pic of mine later if desired. Definitely not parting with it though!!
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If you round the leading edges slightly so they don’t catch you can use that guage made in metal opposite a parting tool.
Or opposite a skew used on its side in a peeling cut
Your guage could be substituted for the parting tool
Or opposite a skew used on its side in a peeling cut
Your guage could be substituted for the parting tool
Roger Wiegand
Beta Tester
If you can make a cad format (dxf) drawing there's a company called sendcutsend.com who will make it for you in your choice of material (metal, thickness) for a very reasonable price in quantity 1, much less if you can find homes for 10 of them. I've been very impressed with both their speed, precision, and quality. You could put a small radius on the tips. They offer many different CNC cutting methods, depending on the material. I've been getting laser cut brass parts cut and bent that arrive ready to use. Their prices are about what it would cost me to buy raw brass sheet from McMaster.
To give credit where deserved, the drawing that Adrian posted is from the Russ Zimmerman woodturning newsletters.
This is my gauge
I haven't needed the 9/16" or 11/16" sizes, so they're not cut out.
This is my gauge
I haven't needed the 9/16" or 11/16" sizes, so they're not cut out.
Using wrenches is easy for smaller tenons
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Made mine from scraps of flat wood - Square an end to an edge, then use a square to a center line down the length and mark out a bunch of different diameters (Mine were based on available forstner bits I had) then take it to a drill press and your forstner bits or hole saw and drill out each marked diameter (I spaced mine to fall at either end of a "gauge") Then I simply ripped down the center line, leaving me with a nicely handled double-end half round diameter gauge for pretty much any size you need or want.
Like this? Definitely an option. https://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-how-to/shop-tips/speedy-spindle-gauge
This is another approach. https://normand.ca/ca_en/woodturning-gauge-nova-10051.html
Wrenches would be okay for tenons, but I am more interested in gauges for duplicating spindles, and they would be too thick. I made this one in the shop yesterday..... 1/4" ply,and too thick (I would want it thinner than my parting tool), but it worked great. I am going to make a gauge like the one I posted above, similar to the one in the OP, but may end up making a library of ones like this.
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Yup that's the basic idea. Mine were my own idea before I saw these in various places - It is why I got my forstner bit set (cheapest I could find on Amazon at the time, about a week after I got my lathe.)
Yep, if I wanted an accurate tenon, I would not be using wrenches , unless you like your tenons slightly larger than the dimension you measured (Wrenches do have a bit of "looseness" to them, rarely is a 1/4" wrench exactly 0.250" unlike a drill bit... - as in sizing a tenon to fit a drilled mortise... tenon wouldn't fit then...) Mine are made from scrap wood, though they do have issues with working with my thin parting tools.. I may make another set in 1/8 hardboard (which will work fine with a 3/16 parting tool, which I'd be using anyway when roughing spindles, etc to size) other than that if you have metal working capabilities (I have the experience but not the tooling) it'd make sense to make some out of thin steel (just want to be sure the corners of openings are rounded, I'd hate a thin steel sheet to catch a spinning spindle while holding the metal!)
Yes. I have one but rarely use it.
I do a lot of spindle turning which includes numerous narrow/deep cuts, such as the complex baluster profiles on Windsor chair components or spindle lattices. For general shaping of a spindle, laying out major diameters, anything an 1/8" thick or less ought to do. I would definitely prefer semicircular templates on a gauge -- I would worry about the rectilinear gaps being more likely to grab. With narrow and deep cuts, a gauge with much thickness -- even a 1/16" -- would not provide an accurate measurement of true depth, so I don't use one. And I would worry about the gauge grabbing the sides of such a cut and doing something unfortunate to my hand. In any event, for safety, I think I would have the measurement gaps on only one side of a template.
Tenons are about the only thing where accurate diameter is crucial, and they have enough width that gauge thickness is not an issue.
I'm a bit confused; I don't have one of those, but have been thinking about one. Peter Galbert is a very good Windsor chair maker and teacher, and the caliper was developed for his work...... what don't you like about it for Windsor chair parts?
At the Rocky Mountain Symposium, Keith Gottschall talked about production turning and highly recommended the Galbert. He said it's very easy to get very precise results. Since he makes most of his living turning spindles, I figured he should know.