Taper Rounder

[Alan Smith]

Stuck indoors at the moment wth a fractured shoulder blade. A little at a loose end I started working up an idea I've had in my mind for a while.

I picked up this

at a wood fair last year, smaller version of a coopers tapered auger. I thought it might be good for making sockets for stool and chair legs and decided I needed an easy way to make exact tapers on the legs to fit the sockets in the stool seat.

This was what I came up with

Another view showing the inserts for the screws holding the blade

Last view shows the cutter geometry

and this is the real point of the post. I've never seen a rounder in the flesh as it were and was very uncertain of how the blade should be mounted to get the best peeling cut. Inspiration came thanks to a pencil sharpener on my wifes desk. Any of you plane building chaps out there like to comment on whether there is a better way to do this?

Also on the subject of rounders I seem to recall that there was a firm making metal rounders for the chair bodging community, are they still around?

 

[DaveL]

Alan,

There are a few options for doing this, Lee Valley have these:

here or these:

here
I have a set of these which are dowel makes but look very similar:

here, they do make nice dowels.
Then Ray Iles does these:

I found them on ebay

 

[Alan Smith]

Dave, thanks. I had no idea that there were modern versions available. Looks like I've re-invented the wheel then! Although advantage of making my own is that the tapers will match as I shall use the auger to make the rounder.

 

[JesseM]

Here are some rounders, somewhat more expensive but looks like they could work well. I have tried contacting them via email, but no success. Since they are your side of the pond you may have more success. The web contact info appears to be knackered

http://www.ashemcrafts.com

 

[Alan Smith]

Jesse, thanks, it was the Ashem Crafts ones that I was remembering. I think they appear in a few books like Mike Abbotts "Green Woodworking" and the like. Seem to remember they also do a device to rotate the spindle as well.