Reamer sharpening

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gstprecision

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Frankford, On
I have a 12ga remchoke reamer that has done about 100 barrels. I believe it is due as it is dragging more than cutting. I could send it back to Manson but I would prefer having it done in Canada.

Any recommendations?

Thanks
GST
 
Yeah. Swallow hard, send the reamer to the folks that made it, and get on with more important worries.

It worked very well, why not hand it back to the folks that actually know (rather than who make a educated guess) what the actual dimensions and angles are supposed to be?

If you don't mind the crapshoot, look up your nearest CNC Tool and Cutter Grinding Shop. They may be able to sharpen it, it may work, or, it might not work as well. But you will still be out the cost.
 
I’ve sent cutting tools back to Manson - the ### part is the return shipping costs forsure. The last cutter i sent cost just shy of $50 Canadian for the return postage. If you were in Alberta, I would send some stuff to get altered and we could split shipping costs.
 
You can stone the inside flats with a fine India stone and that may help. You can also stone the relief but that takes a very steady and careful hand. I knew an older gunsmith who used to finish stone the reamers he made, he wouldn't hesitate to do it... he passed on several years ago.
 
Guntech gives good advice. Back in the day one of my jobs( as a machinist) was sharpening tooling Depending on where you live there are some outfits out there that still offer to grind tooling. Let google be your guide. Just make certain they
understand only the face is to be touched!
 
Sending it back seems to be the best option, but it is also fairly costly. $25 shipping there, $45 usd for sharpening and unknown for return shipping, possibly customs on the return shipping.

I was told that sharpening is sometimes not worth it as the reamer might never cut good again. Is that true?

GST
 
I've never paid customs on a returned sharpened reamer or a new one for that matter, but it can be slow depending on how fast the snail is crawling with your parcel. In the end it seems to cost about half or more the price of a nwew reamer to get it sharpened including shipping and you have essentially a new reamer.
 
gstprecision said:
Sending it back seems to be the best option, but it is also fairly costly. $25 shipping there, $45 usd for sharpening and unknown for return shipping, possibly customs on the return shipping.

I was told that sharpening is sometimes not worth it as the reamer might never cut good again. Is that true?

GST
Click to expand...

I believe on a factory resharpening the whole reamer is reground... it's the same dimensions as a new reamer... this could be done over and over moving 'back' on the reamer slightly each time until you run out of sufficient reamer...
 
guntech said:
I believe on a factory resharpening the whole reamer is reground... it's the same dimensions as a new reamer... this could be done over and over moving 'back' on the reamer slightly each time until you run out of sufficient reamer...
Click to expand...

That matches what I have been told.

Stoning the flats is a fair enough way to extend the life of a reamer, but it won't do what needs done as far as restoring it to new condition, as it will reduce the diameter, if only slightly (maybe tolerable) however it will not deal with and wear on the actual cutting edge, so you could well enough stone the front face to near perfection, but not get the worn sections off the actual cutting edge.

For those interested in such, there is a drawing and some discussions of a reamer stoning jig in Guy Lautard's The Machinist's Bedside Reader series of books. He admits to botching up the drawings, as he reversed them, but if you are at all capable of building a jig like it and using it, it should cause you no troubles.

It boils down to a risk vs. reward assessment, which each guy will have to work out in their own terms. A regrind, plus a wait, or simply pay the toll and buy a new reamer. With a 100 jobs behind it, maybe both a new reamer and a regrind, and then you can directly compare. And, one could be in use with the other as backup, and you'd not be out while the dull one gets a trip to be renovated.

I ran a Tool And Cutter Grinder in the shop I last worked at. Did mostly drills and chucking reamers, either just a sharpening, or making custom sizes and stepped hole reamers. While the manual T&C grider could have been set up to grind a chamber reamer, or regrind one, the time and headaches looked like they were not near worth the effort compared to just buying one. For what it takes to make one, they are cheap!
 
trevj said:
(snip)

I ran a Tool And Cutter Grinder in the shop I last worked at. Did mostly drills and chucking reamers, either just a sharpening, or making custom sizes and stepped hole reamers. While the manual T&C grider could have been set up to grind a chamber reamer, or regrind one, the time and headaches looked like they were not near worth the effort compared to just buying one. For what it takes to make one, they are cheap!
Click to expand...

So - with that in mind, I have asked on another forum if rifle barrels are hardened? I've recently spend 4 years in a tool-and-die shop doing wire-EDM on hardened A2, D2, M4 (AKA W360), and V4E - most of it between 50 and 60 RC depending on the steel. My question was: Are barrels hardened? If so, how do gunsmiths crown, profile, chamber, and thread them with ordinary machining tools? I don't recall any discussion of "hardmilling" when I've visited gunsmiths. I'm not really interested in taking a file to any of my barrels to check their hardness.

Do you know?
 
AikiNut said:
So - with that in mind, I have asked on another forum if rifle barrels are hardened? I've recently spend 4 years in a tool-and-die shop doing wire-EDM on hardened A2, D2, M4 (AKA W360), and V4E - most of it between 50 and 60 RC depending on the steel. My question was: Are barrels hardened? If so, how do gunsmiths crown, profile, chamber, and thread them with ordinary machining tools? I don't recall any discussion of "hardmilling" when I've visited gunsmiths. I'm not really interested in taking a file to any of my barrels to check their hardness.

Do you know?
Click to expand...

Barrels are heat treated but they are not hard. They file easily and on a lathe machine easily with HSS bits. Carbide tooling not required.
 
Not hardened.

Occasionally hard chrome chambers (machine gun barrels mostly) or a chrome bore (more on military style guns expected to see hard service), otherwise the requirements for barrels is pretty much that they be easily machined.

Heat treating, if done, is usually a stress relief operation, or extreme cooling to get the magic juju of the liquid nitrogen immersion going, aka cryro treatment.

Hard usually comes hand in hand with brittle, and for the most part, guns are not so much in need of the former, and really don't need the latter.

Some portions of bolts, some receivers, and internal parts, are hardened or case hardened as that may go, but barrels, not so much.
 
OP, if you want your reamer to be as it was new, send it back to Manson as suggested. The prices you're quoting are a lot less than the cost of a new reamer.

Obviously you're using this reamer fairly often if you've used it for 100 chambers. That's a lot of chambers without resharpening, no matter how careful you are IMHO.

There are shops in Canada that can do it properly but you will have to GOOGLE that information. Mostly it's a matter of getting the angles right and as well as the indexing.

You will need to find a shop with a good indexing attachment.

Some people on this site make their own reamers. I've done this and found them acceptable. I don't do it any longer because it's tedious to do with the equipment I have. For the price Manson's is charging, it just isn't worth the hassle.

TURF THE LIBERALS IN 2019
 
Thanks for all the advices. I have a new reamer coming and this one is going back to Manson. I definately use it enough to afford the costs.

Trevj, I have seen that jig. PTG and GreTan are offering it. It seems pretty simple to make. Unfortunately the Machinist's bedside reader part 3 is not printed anymore. I can find part 1 and 2 on PDF but not 3.

GST
 
buckbrush said:
The Machinist's Bedside Readers are not printed anymore because Guy Lautard got divorced and his Wife got the right's to all his writings.
Click to expand...

Ow!

Have heard of similar "up yours" moves, during divorces. Demanding things not because you want them, but to take them away from the spouse.

Given his established career as an author and writer, she essentially took his work away from him. Methinks her Lawyer was better than his.

I have a couple copies of the Bedside Reader series buried around here, along with several of GL's other items, like the Tinker Tool and Cutter Grider paperwork, and somewhere, a VHS copy of the rifling machine video he was selling.
 
Lautard is a Professional Engineer, Mechanical I believe. He is remarried and lives on the Sunshine Coast somewhere. So He is probably doing alright, and the internet may have killed off his sideline anyways.
 
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