How to modify a gun drill?

What kind of lathe?

If you are using a metal lathe, then by all means the Aloris style quick release boring bar holder is the way to fly, that way you use the Carriage to bore, way faster, easy to align, and rock solid.
If you have a lathe like the Cuesmith Deluxe then make a saddle to mount on the carriage. A rectangular block of aluminum with a one inch hole bored through at the proper distance above the mounting surface of the cross slide will provide a very secure mount for a gun drill. Four socket head bolts can hold this to the carriage. If care is used in the machining of the block, you should easily be able to align your gun drill for drilling with the carriage. Also one can use the rear air fitting on the gun drill, and be able to put a dead center in your tailstock to align the drill using the center of the air fitting! I explained all this a couple years ago when I sold maybe 40 of these drills to Azers. Using the tailstock is very slow, and not needed. It is as easy to make a carriage holder as it is machining the drill end to fit in the tailstock chuck. Good Luck!
 
If you are using a metal lathe, then by all means the Aloris style quick release boring bar holder is the way to fly, that way you use the Carriage to bore, way faster, easy to align, and rock solid.
If you have a lathe like the Cuesmith Deluxe then make a saddle to mount on the carriage. A rectangular block of aluminum with a one inch hole bored through at the proper distance above the mounting surface of the cross slide will provide a very secure mount for a gun drill. Four socket head bolts can hold this to the carriage. If care is used in the machining of the block, you should easily be able to align your gun drill for drilling with the carriage. Also one can use the rear air fitting on the gun drill, and be able to put a dead center in your tailstock to align the drill using the center of the air fitting! I explained all this a couple years ago when I sold maybe 40 of these drills to Azers. Using the tailstock is very slow, and not needed. It is as easy to make a carriage holder as it is machining the drill end to fit in the tailstock chuck. Good Luck!


Hi,

To core a 12.5 inch piece of wood with a tail stock mounted gun drill you have to overhaul the TS 5 times and turn the handle. It takes only about 3 minutes to core a piece and you are pecking it and controlling the feed by hand thus controlling the tool and material heat.

Why would you want to go faster than that. The tailstock designed gun drill are self aligning on the centerline of the spindle bore and other than a few pipe fittings, a valve and quick connect air fitting they are plug and play right out of the box.

When coring I like to take my time with each piece. Every time you overhaul the Tail stock the air is cooling the blind hole as opposed to building constant heat when engaging the saddle to the auto feed mode.

JMHO,

Rick
 
A metal drill will cut wood just fine. My metal drill have has 2 flutes and the wood gun drill I have has only one. I have been doing it for almost 2 years and have drilled more than 100 pieces of wood with them.

Kim, I have to respectfully disagree, if the head doesn't have a point ground into it, it will not make a hole without a smaller hole already there. I have different drills with different ground heads, due to not being aware of this before buying them. The ones pictured with a flat nose will burn the wood and create alot of heat before drilling any hole. The pointed ones will bore it's own hole nice and clean. I have to drill a small hole first in order to use the flatnosed ones. I was told by a gunsmith that those are for enlarging the dia. of a barrel bore after the intitial hole was drilled, like step drilling. I have made attachments to hold them in chucks or holders, including one type that screws on. Hope the pictures help.
Dave
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Dave Nice post here image of tip

Dave here is an image of the tip








QUOTE=Dave38;4151022]Kim, I have to respectfully disagree, if the head doesn't have a point ground into it, it will not make a hole without a smaller hole already there. I have different drills with different ground heads, due to not being aware of this before buying them. The ones pictured with a flat nose will burn the wood and create alot of heat before drilling any hole. The pointed ones will bore it's own hole nice and clean. I have to drill a small hole first in order to use the flatnosed ones. I was told by a gunsmith that those are for enlarging the dia. of a barrel bore after the intitial hole was drilled, like step drilling. I have made attachments to hold them in chucks or holders, including one type that screws on. Hope the pictures help.
Dave
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Dave here is an image of the tip








QUOTE=Dave38;4151022]Kim, I have to respectfully disagree, if the head doesn't have a point ground into it, it will not make a hole without a smaller hole already there. I have different drills with different ground heads, due to not being aware of this before buying them. The ones pictured with a flat nose will burn the wood and create alot of heat before drilling any hole. The pointed ones will bore it's own hole nice and clean. I have to drill a small hole first in order to use the flatnosed ones. I was told by a gunsmith that those are for enlarging the dia. of a barrel bore after the intitial hole was drilled, like step drilling. I have made attachments to hold them in chucks or holders, including one type that screws on. Hope the pictures help.
Dave
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Kim, I have to respectfully disagree, if the head doesn't have a point ground into it, it will not make a hole without a smaller hole already there. I have different drills with different ground heads, due to not being aware of this before buying them. The ones pictured with a flat nose will burn the wood and create alot of heat before drilling any hole. The pointed ones will bore it's own hole nice and clean. I have to drill a small hole first in order to use the flatnosed ones. I was told by a gunsmith that those are for enlarging the dia. of a barrel bore after the intitial hole was drilled, like step drilling. I have made attachments to hold them in chucks or holders, including one type that screws on. Hope the pictures help.
Dave

Dave, I understand what you re saying. I have never seen a gun drill that didn't have some kind of point on it. I am not going to tell you that I am any kind of expert machinist or that I have really ever seen that many gun drills. I know that mine do start their own hole if held in place while I push it a little bit to start. I do wipe the head of the drill with a little wax and it will cut better and faster.

The only gun drill I have that is specifically for wood is the one I bought from Hightower. My other gun drills are metal drills and they seem to cut just the same. Anyway, I can't tell the difference.

Kim
 
i was not trying to be a dick, [ some of my friends say different ] BUT i was making a point. example !!!! a guy calls me and tells me he will give me $1000.00 for spending a week with him teaching him how to build cues. i had to decline as i told him i could not TEACH him how to build cues, i could only show him how i build cues.
my cue building experience came from making jewelry, problem solving. a customer brings me a broken piece of jewelry and i look at it and figure out how to do the repair. working with wood, lathes, hand tools and building cues is the same. you have to be able to look at an item or problem and fiqure out how to best solve the matter.


No one ever taught you? You had to learn everything on your own? That must have been a hard road to travel.:mad: Maybe you shouldn't want someone else to travel that road also. I agree, in a week nobody can teach someone how to build a cue, I don't think you could teach someone how you build a cue in a week. Not meaning you can't teach, I mean there is not enough time for the content. You could spend a week just covering tools and there functions. But, to discourage someone from learning a new trade because they ask a simple question is certainly the wrong answer. The OP ask a valid question, "How should I modify this gun drill to fit my 1/2" chuck?" meaning, what is the best method? Probably hoping for a dozen different answers, not that any are wrong, but what fits my knowledge and ability best. 15 years ago I started a tool and die apprenticeship, I knew very little about the trade, but I'm quite mechanically inclined so it came natural to me. in a bonafide apprenticeship you spend X amount of hours doing many different small parts of the trade until you reach 8100 hours on the job. Plus schooling. In all those hours you work with many different journymen. Alot of times learning the same thing a bunch of different ways. In the end you find a way that works for you, maybe jelling a few different methods together. Just doing things without asking may get you by and you may be productive, but could there be a better way? You don't know if you don't ask. I'm not intentionally bagging on you, it just really bugs me when someone perceives a question as stupid, and the answer becomes worse than the question. Sorry for the long drawn out post.
Tom
 
You said wood dealers thrice..

Good luck in turning that shank down to 1/2. :grin-square:
On a non-metal lathe at that . That sucker might do number on that aluminum chuck.
That's a coolant type gun drill afaik. It has the hole in the back for coolant.
I'm not sure what thread but might as well fab an adapter from that to 1/4 20.

This is where fun starts ? :grin:

And if he thinks the morons here are tough to deal with, wait till he deals with warpage, peels, buzzes, epoxy failure, wood dealers, cracks, checks, dings, dents , wood dealers, supplies dealers, machinery, wood dealers and " AAA " maple dowels. :eek::grin-square:

I have a feeling Francis from Stripes is about to come out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMtvnAmfuf8
:grin-square:
 
Isnt this the ask the cuemaker section? As in customers asking cuemakers about cue related things?
 
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Kidd, that is a great one for coring. it is a self starting point. If you look at I believe the third image I posted, it shows a 5/16 gundrill and I pressed in a piece of steel into the rear coolant hole and the drilled a small hole across both pieces and then pressed a pin in. Then chucked it up and turned the steel piece down to 1/2" thereby making it concentric to the drill, then drilled a hole on the shank of the drill and installed the air fitting.
Dave
 
I have bought off of ebay 2 gundrills, and one directly from sterling built for cue building, then bought 2 more from a member here. The one from sterling was the only one that didn't need 're-working'. First, Kidd would be better off if he first asked this question before buying. If the grind on the bit is not a wood friendly angle, he just wasted money. In the pic, he didn't show the tip, it has a cover on it. Secondly, If one gives advice to machining the end down to .5 " then they should show a picture or two and also state that if you go and machine the whole length of the end piece, you will usually machine the backend right off the drill shank itself, as no one has even mentioned that there is an end piece fitted and welded onto the shank and the diameter is usually larger than .5". If you only go about around 1.125" from the end you will still leave some meat around the shank connection. I didn't realize this with the first one I bought and had to re-attach the back end after I machined off the metal holding the shank to the end. It was a lesson learned and I worked thru it, but people need to give accurate info if they decide to share in the first place, otherwise it is useless info that costs the OP, and anyone else that reads it later, in the end, IHMO.
Dave
I did the same thing. I bought a 3 pack of .750 gun drills and all had a 1 inch shank. I decided to turn the shank to .625 to fit my drill chuck and when I got down around .680 or so, the end fell off. lol. So, i decided that .750 would be a better option.

Joe
 
I did the same thing. I bought a 3 pack of .750 gun drills and all had a 1 inch shank. I decided to turn the shank to .625 to fit my drill chuck and when I got down around .680 or so, the end fell off. lol. So, i decided that .750 would be a better option.

Joe

I had one that did that and I just trimmed it off and turned it further down. The flutes were still several inches away....

Kim
 
Kim, I have to respectfully disagree, if the head doesn't have a point ground into it, it will not make a hole without a smaller hole already there. I have different drills with different ground heads, due to not being aware of this before buying them. The ones pictured with a flat nose will burn the wood and create alot of heat before drilling any hole. The pointed ones will bore it's own hole nice and clean. I have to drill a small hole first in order to use the flatnosed ones. I was told by a gunsmith that those are for enlarging the dia. of a barrel bore after the intitial hole was drilled, like step drilling. I have made attachments to hold them in chucks or holders, including one type that screws on. Hope the pictures help.
Dave
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Not so. I used to use gun drills in M2 Tool Steel solid bar stock 1" diameter 4" deep and consistently held .0004" tolerance. The key is proper surface feet per minute and feed rate, as well as heavy thru spindle coolant, with Heald Red Head spindles. This is the type of work gun drills are designed for. Actually, pilot holes defeat the purpose.
 
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No one ever taught you? You had to learn everything on your own? That must have been a hard road to travel.:mad: Maybe you shouldn't want someone else to travel that road also. I agree, in a week nobody can teach someone how to build a cue, I don't think you could teach someone how you build a cue in a week. Not meaning you can't teach, I mean there is not enough time for the content. You could spend a week just covering tools and there functions. But, to discourage someone from learning a new trade because they ask a simple question is certainly the wrong answer. The OP ask a valid question, "How should I modify this gun drill to fit my 1/2" chuck?" meaning, what is the best method? Probably hoping for a dozen different answers, not that any are wrong, but what fits my knowledge and ability best. 15 years ago I started a tool and die apprenticeship, I knew very little about the trade, but I'm quite mechanically inclined so it came natural to me. in a bonafide apprenticeship you spend X amount of hours doing many different small parts of the trade until you reach 8100 hours on the job. Plus schooling. In all those hours you work with many different journymen. Alot of times learning the same thing a bunch of different ways. In the end you find a way that works for you, maybe jelling a few different methods together. Just doing things without asking may get you by and you may be productive, but could there be a better way? You don't know if you don't ask. I'm not intentionally bagging on you, it just really bugs me when someone perceives a question as stupid, and the answer becomes worse than the question. Sorry for the long drawn out post.
Tom

PGBWM,

You are right, there are no stupid questions.

If someone offends you, best to ignore them.

Took me a while to learn that.

Good luck on your journey.


Rick
 
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