A big ol' chunk of delrin

A soaking heat for several hours followed by a sloooowwww cooling has worked for me in the past . Small parts can be buried in sand or ashes, bigger stuff stays in the stove . I did the overnight in the wood stove with a piece of Old Chevy Spring to make a froe . One of these days I'll carry the metal parts and a chunk of hickory (harvested right here in The Holler by a neighbor) down to another neighbor - the one that has a wood lathe . I could do it on my machine lathe but the mess ...

A soaking heat for several hours followed by a sloooowwww cooling has worked for me in the past . Small parts can be buried in sand or ashes, bigger stuff stays in the stove . I did the overnight in the wood stove with a piece of Old Chevy Spring to make a froe . One of these days I'll carry the metal parts and a chunk of hickory (harvested right here in The Holler by a neighbor) down to another neighbor - the one that has a wood lathe . I could do it on my machine lathe but the mess ...

-- Snag

------------------------------------

The traditional way to make wood round if too big for a lathe, like ship masts, is to first saw it square to intended taper and diameter, then plane (or chop) it octagonal, by eye according to the widths of the flats, then plane down corners until close enough for the purpose. I think a froe handle should look home-made, not smoothly round.

I tried making a froe from a car leaf spring split lengthwise with a torch. I had wobbled a little at one end and left a notch, which I filled in with acetylene, then decided not to risk forming the ferrule in hard + soft steel and gave it a machete handle, which works for kindling, not so well for prying off shakes.

The smith advised me to temper the presumably 5160 or equivalent steel twice, an hour apiece, at 325-350F. He suggested a toaster oven, I used a salvaged 2" x 18" industrial tube furnace lined with 2" exhaust pipe. The metal shows a faint yellow tinge.

An oak branch used as the beetle slowly shredded, perhaps the back of the blade should have been wider. jsw

The traditional way to make wood round if too big for a lathe, like ship masts, is to first saw it square to intended taper and diameter, then plane (or chop) it octagonal, by eye according to the widths of the flats, then plane down corners until close enough for the purpose. I think a froe handle should look home-made, not smoothly round.

--------------------------------

A draw knife and shingle hatchet help with this rough free-form woodworking. A chainsaw works surprisingly well as a plane if tilted slightly to control depth of cut, also to fit the sides of two logs together by repeatedly cutting (kerfing) between them. Wedge the cut to keep the upper log from binding the blade at the exit. Wedges meant to shim door and window frames are the right size. Clamped-on scrap 2x4 blade guide blocks enable a pruning bow saw to make quite smooth and precise cross cuts quickly. jsw

I once made a (finger) ring from pattern-welded mild steel and a piece of VW Beetle front suspension torsion spring. File glided off of it as if it were glass. Put it in the coal of the wood range and left it overnight as the fire died. Next day, it filed nicely.

Those yard-long VW spring leaves can be clamped in the vise and bent

So, good lo-tech annealing trick. Dunno about rock drill pipe, though.