I need a small handle for a 6 mm roofing bolt. So I took a piece of very rare and precious exotic wood (broomstickonia, if you are curious about it) and a piece of vintage heating pipe. I threaded a short headless screw into the wood, then mounted it on the drill press chuck, using it as a poor man lathe. Some square centimeters of sandpaper later (Norton #50 for the wood and #220 for the copper ferrule) the result is that on the right. I think I have to buy a pipe cutter to make better ferrules, anyway: an angle grinder don't seems me the more appropriate tool for pipe cutting ;-) Since the result seems good I think I'll take some other photos of the "making of", because I need another handle like this one. Mi serviva una piccola maniglia da mettere su una vite per coperture da 6 mm. Quindi ho preso un pezzo di raro e prezioso legno esotico (manicoskoponia, se siete curiosi) e un pezzo di vetusto tubo da riscaldamento. Ho avvitato una vite da legno senza testa nel legno e l'ho montato nel trapano a colonna, usandolo come un tornio dei poveri. Qualche centimetro quadrato di carta vetro piu tardi (Norton grana 50 per il legno e grana 220 per la ghiera di rame) il risultato e quello a destra. Penso che dovro comprare un tagliatubi per avere delle ghiere migliori, comunque: un flessibile non mi sembra l'attrezzo piu indicato per il taglio dei tubi ;-) Visto che il risultato sembra buono penso che faro altre foto del "making of", perche mi serve un'altra maniglietta come questa.

Here's the drilled board. I use a Dremel drill press and a #66 drill bit. The drill itself is a Dremel tool with a little keyless chuck attachment. To do this kind of work you need to set the tool to very high speed. Then it works pretty well, but sounds disturbingly like a dental drill. When you look really close-up like this, the drilling appears to be a disaster. It's actually not so bad, and the only really awful hole (noted) is still salvageable. Some of the holes are just where they ought to be, but many of them are off-center and have torn out a bit of the surrounding pad. Sometimes this is due to the two sides of the board being misaligned, so even if the hole is centered on one side it isn't on the other, but it has more to do with my not being a skillful driller. But many of the off-centers are wrong by about 1/100 of an inch, and I can live with that.