Recent content by Northern woodworm

Very nicely done: did you think about trying broaching? If I had a metal turning lathe this is a project I would be interested in doing for machining holes like that (and for adding hex sockets to things): http://www.docsmachine.com/projects/rot ... /rb01.html

That sounds like a lovely idea. Black walnut may look particularly striking with the greater contrast between dark wood and bright metal.

I've had the same issue with iron clamps touching the oak/wet PVA. I assumed that it was similar chemistry as used to create ink from oak galls and rust in the middle ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_gall_ink

That is true but as the temperature for the release of Hydrofluoric acid is 300C it seems unlikely that that temperature will be reached if use sharp tools in wood.

Due to it being harder than other steels I would have thought that drilling with standard drills would be a bit a of non-starter. I have had some success in the past drilling very hard ceramic with a diamond grinding drill bit so with a lowish speed it may work on hss. There pretty cheap from...

Rather than an Ironmongers have you tried a local frame welders/fabricators yard. Something like that should be fairly cheap and easy to knock up in something like 304 stainless.

In general aluminium is easier to machine than copper: copper tends to be more abrasive blunting the tools a lot faster and has a tendency to snatch clogging or breaking tools with little notice. However with copper the difficulty is related to how hard or soft it is. For slot cutting the pipe...