Square Shank Reamer questions

No, these are hand reamers, to be held with a tap wrench. You can put a rod with a 60° tip on it in the DP chuck, or you can put a lathe center in the tailstock of a lathe, and use this to catch the center of the square shank of the reamer (which almost certainly is drilled for it) and thus hold the reamer square to your hole, which is good.

Well, taps come with square shanks..

Read

When I had one, I used it a lot until I got a milling machine. But I don't know about versatile. It's true, some guys use them to sharpen wood chisels, stir paint, or the like but they're mostly for drilling holes. Big issue is how accurately you can locate your holes with respect to an edge or other holes. On a DP, you can get maybe .005" accuracy, and sometimes .010" and often this isn't good enough. Back in the day I drilled lots of pieces with multiple holes and it was always a big worry if the bolts would always fit through. None of that on a mill with a DRO, mill 'em and drop the bolts in.

GWE

Square shank reamers are HAND reamers, to be driven by a tap wrench by hand.

Chucking them and using them in the lathe, drill press, or milling machine, under power will in all likelihood break something (reamer, work piece, fingers) because odds are the reamer will jam into the hole.

Hand reamers have a long, gentle taper at the cutting end, and this entire tapered length is the cutting edge. The long taper makes it easy to push the reamer with drill quill or tailstock, overloading the flutes, breaking reamers in the smaller sizes.

It is ok to support the reamer in the machine using centers but, the reamer should be driven by hand. Note that the reaming allowance is only a few thou. for hand reamers.

Wolfgang

if anyone wants SS reamers, I have a bunch of big ones...

What sizes do you have, Iggy? Are they sharp?

Thanks Grant.

Greg

Thanks Wolfgang.

Greg

Because, in sufficient quantities, air is blue. ;-)

Cheers! Rich