Tool & Jig Making

So here is the completed chatter tool! It works pretty nicely - I just need to find an old bicycle handlebar grip to finish it out to replace the ugly black tape I put over the remaining threads. The tool is constructed from a 1/2 inch diameter black gas pipe I had in my plumbing supplies from some odd job remnants. I sanded and polished it to make it look a little more appealing. The business end has been drilled and tapped for a 1/4" x 16 thread for a thumbscrew to hold the chatter tip. The chatter tip is an old dead Sawzall blade that I ground off the remaining teeth and rounded out the tip. Inside the pipe I turned a piece of hard maple which I then cut lengthwise and jammed it into the pipe. It works as the base clamp for the chatter bit while the thumbscrew pinches it down to it.

I left the pipe about 12 inches long to accommodate holding it in various positions to change the chatter pattern. I'm going to grind a few other pieces of material for the chatter tip to try and find what works best, but for now, I've been using this one to do cool swirl patterns in wood!

Fun do it yourself project that cost me literally nothing but a few hours of time.

If you have watched the video from Tom Gall where he turns some really pretty tops, you may have seen him use a couple different tools in his processes. Besides painting, Tom does lots of embellishments to the actual wood, introducing different grain patterns and textures. One of the tools - a chatter tool - is a simple one to make with some basic materials so I thought I would post some ideas and references for all - including some visuals of me making my own tool! Making tops is fun, and if you give it some thought, it's pretty easy to up your game to produce really spectacular ones!

One of the best plans and tutorials on how to build one type of chatter tool can be found here Chatter Tool but there are lots of other ways to do it including lag screws, hose clamps, and broken saw blades out on the web. Oh, and if you are so inclined, you can buy a commercially made one from folks like Robert Sorby Tools for slightly less than $100.

A chatter tool gives you the cool and sometimes uneven patterns on the top like these

The chatter marks then allow you to add color to them to increase their effects -

As for making my tool, I am using a piece of 1/2 gas pipe, a broken Sawzall blade and some maple wood from my scrap heap. I've been taking pics along the build process, but they are really similar to the pics in the link above, so to keep this thread more efficient, I'm not going to post them - but I'll show my tool when its done.

Anyone else make something like this?