Minimal Investment Torque Driver.
Having a convenient handle on a tool you use quite often saves alot of time and aggrevation. There probably are many ways to add a handle to an Allen wrench but this one has the advantage of being done without having to securely grip the wooden handel in the lathe chuck. It is held there for positioning while some epoxy glue hardens though. A slot to recieve the Allen wrench is milled in the wooden dowel with enough room around it to ensure that the wrench can be centered with room for epoxy glue all around. The short arm of the Allen wrench is ground off to allow it to be submerged by the glue in the slot. The conical ferrule is used to give some strength to the joint since the Allen wrench is not buried very deeply lengthwise into the wood. The assembley is glued together in two steps as follows.
First the Allen wrench is chucked in the tailstock chuck and
the dowel lightly chucked in the headstock and checked for rough
centering. The plastic electrical tape which is pierced by the
Allen wrench is brought up to the dowel and forms a dam to keep
the epoxy from running out of the slot. The slot is oriented in
the vertical direction and filled with epoxy and allowed to
harden. The assembly is removed from the lathe and the tape
removed and the area where it contacted the dowel is scraped
clear of any adhesive remaining from the tape. The little conical
ferrule is then brought up to the dowel and glued in place using
either epoxy or cyanoacrylic glue. Cyanoacrylic glue will stick
to hardened epoxy very well. The ferrule was made from 1/2"
diameter grey PVC rod but could as well be made from steel or
aluminum. Aluminum will bond strongly to Cyanoacrylic if it is
etched slightly with Lye Drain Cleaner (Sodium Hydroxide). The
wooden dowel between 3/4" and 7/8" diameter and about 2.5"
long seemed to work well for the 3/32" Long Form Allen
Wrench.
For any small wooden object that is handled quite a bit, I like
the convenience and durability of the classic gunstock finishes
produced by wiping(soaking) the object with Linseed or Tung oil a
number of times and scouring lightly with steel wool between
soakings. Linseed oil may take a month to harden while a couple
of days seems to do it with the Tung Oil. The wait is worth the
trouble for the "waxy" finishes finally evolving. A
quicker finish would be to wipe(soak) the wood with varnish once,
let harden, use the steel wool, and then let any kind of oil film
develop on the surface.
Steel Wool fibers and grinding grit should be kept away from machine tool surfaces.