Making an Oland tool

[paul269]

I like to spend my time working with tools and less time sharpening them. I found the gouge quickly becomes dull when used to rough a blank from square to round. And the gouge in my opinion is not the best tool for end grain. One evening I was browsing and came upon this web site. http://www.aroundthewoods.com/oland.shtml. I watched the videos of this man using the Oland tool and decided to make one.

I first started looking on eBay for the cold rolled steel blank but was not happy with what I found. I stopped in at the local machine shop and explained what I wanted to make. The machinist went to his scrap pile and found ¾ x 18 inch piece of cold rolled steel. While at the shop he bored a hold to accept the tool steel, drilled and taped a hole for a set screw he had in the shop.

The machinist refused payment because to quote him, “it’s just some stuff I had laying around.”

Then I went to the hardware store and purchased a 1” copper connector for $1.79. From my scrap pile I found some oak.

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I mounded the oak between centers and roughed round with the Oland tool. A tenon was made to accept the copper. I found the internal diameter of the copper was 1 1/8 inch. The wood was formed, and then a ¾ bit was used to boar about 5 inches.

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[paul269]

The wood was sanded from 80 to 1500. Finished with boiled linseed oil, two coats of Deft satin and then buffed with 0000 steel wool.

The copper was polished with Flitz and a coat of Deft was applied to seal the copper. The inside of the copper was sanded with 120 and CA glue applied. I then used a punch to dimple the copper to hold it to the wood.

My cost is $1.79. If the machinist had charged me I think the cost of his materials would be about $10.00. And it took him less than 20 minutes to drill both holes and tap the one.

My time is about 3 hours if you include the time it took to drive to the machine shop. About 2 hours to turn and finish the wood.

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[paul269]

For got to mention. I was prepared to purchase the high speed steel tool bit from ebay as they are often listed and cheep. The machinist had a supply of about 100 and said they only cost him about $1.00 each. They measure 1/4" square by 2-1/2" long. He gave this to me free as well.

[tdubnik]

Fine looking job.

I'm sure it'll get a lot of use!!!

[charlese]

Beautiful tool, and beautiful story! It's heartening when we read stories about people who are wiling to help and go to great lengths for no compensation other than to feel good.

I'm sure you will prize that tool for a long time! Thank you for your photos.

[a1gutterman]

Great job, Paul! Thank you for sharing.