Kant-Twist Knurling Tool - My take.

[middle.road]

Here's my take on modding a Kant-Twist for a scissors style knurler.
Been messing with knurling Ø1" copper and brass tubes. Consistency with 'bump' knurlers has not been attainable, at least not with my skill level.
Bought an import 3-position fine-medium-course, bought some US made wheels and still not quite there. too much pressure.
I've come to the conclusion that knurling is 89% luck and requires proper alignment of the sun, moon and stars.
Anyway I thought I'd try making a clamp type scissors tool.
In hind sight I should have perhaps put my effort into making Hawkeye's Camjack Knurler.
The donor is an old #410 which it would appear spent it's life in a XEROX Tool Room. It was pretty loose and worn out.
My thought was to assemble it with solid blocks to beef up the arms.
So here's my Kant-Twist-XEROX-Strongback Knurler...

 

[pdentrem]

I actually bought a KantTwist for just this use. Been busy working on the house though........

 

[FOMOGO]

Seems to work pretty well. Nice job. Mike

 

[woodchucker]

Excellent mod , great eye to see that. I have an Eagle Rock knock off, and if I didn't , I would consider that mod of a Kant Twist.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

nice work @middle.road!!!
i like it!

 

[middle.road]

Status update time. Much improved with the purchase & installation of a pair of (NOS) Armstrong #8225's (medium).
Engaged the ~.975" aluminum shaft cleanly and the holder didn't move around as much as with the imports.
Much better results!
Hand lapping washers to shim the wheels gets a bit tedious. Need to get a surface grinder someday.
or perhaps the skill to make the shims correctly on the lathe.
Below is a picture of the Armstrongs compared to the imports. The Armstrongs are .27 wide on the face, the imports .24

 

[.LMS.]

Nice! I ended up scoring a used Eagle Rock on fleabay and it is night and day compared to the bump knurler that came with my Phase II QCTP set. Regarding the star alignment, and luck component, go take a look at Joe Pie's youtube video on knurling. He says don't worry about the diameters of the piece - just clamp down and go, and shows a few examples that prove it enough for this noob to be convinced, and it has worked so far the few times I've done it.

 

[middle.road]

Thanks, that's the video I caught when I realized that clamp-type is the way to go.
The bump style puts too much pressure on the tubing. Came up with some interesting patterns that weren't easily repeated.
But not a pattern you'd really want.
The wife wants one of the bump patterns on a copper ring...

 

[Silverbullet]

Nice build , think ill have to make one someday . I use a squeeze handle set I got from msc over forty years ago. My grip isn't what it used to be tho now.

 

[middle.road]

Brass behaves differently. Ended up with varying results. Don't have any specs on the material so I have no idea if this is 360 or not.
The tube on the left is from a different source. I have no clue how I managed to end up with such a cool 'fine' pattern.