# Knurling  Help



## umahunter (May 29, 2015)

When setting  up to knurl on the standard  knurled tool that comes with a qctp I've got it on my slowest speed and feed what I'm wondering  is do you want to run it 90 degrees  or at an angle  ??? I'm knurling aluminum  if that makes any difference


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## dave2176 (May 30, 2015)

I run 90 degrees, 200 rpm. Don't know the carriage speed right now but the gear box is in the same position that gives 32 tpi. I'm knurling 1.0 to 1.25 diameter aluminum 6061.
Dave


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## GK1918 (May 30, 2015)

90 degrees or an angle.  I think that depends.  Memory serves me a slight angle is called spiral  knurling, try it.  I think its
a little easier on the lathe. Most are straight in at 90*.  to each his own choice, they both work.....


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## Kroll (May 30, 2015)

I been watching Utubes on knurling and I seen them do it both ways.I think the benfit is a tapper finish,but also alittle easier to do if you were knurling something harder than aluminum


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## EmilioG (May 30, 2015)

check out Tom Griffins site, Tom's Techniques.  He made a nice knurling tool.


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## kingmt01 (May 31, 2015)

EmilioG said:


> check out Tom Griffins site, Tom's Techniques.  He made a nice knurling tool.


Do you mind paying a direct link to that?


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## aeroHAWK (May 31, 2015)

Here is Tom's web site:

http://tomstechniques.com/

(Google is your friend)


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## sgisler (May 31, 2015)

I looked at that; a really nice looking knurler. However, I can't quite see how you would adjust it. Would one crank it down on the (stationary) material, then turn on lathe/feed?


Stan,
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Doubleeboy (May 31, 2015)

I don't know if its the right way, but its the way I have been doing it mostly successfully for years with a scissors type knurler.

   I center the upper and lower arm so knurls are at 12 and 6 oclock, set loose, no contact with part.  I then turn machine on, already have my carriage feed selected.  Slowly tighten the clamp that pulls the 2 arms of scissors together till you are getting half decent impression, slop on lots of lube and hit the carriage feed and away we go.  When done, turn spindle off, loosen clamp on scissors, go back to start, gently let the knurls contact starting position with spindle turning , you will feel the wheels drop into to previous impressions, slop on more lube, tighten the scissors and hit the carriage feed and away you go again.  Repeat a third time if you need it to have deeper knurl.  

Those bump style knurlers are bin material for me, I refuse to use them, very hard on spindle bearing, cross slide screw, a rather violent way of doing the job compared to the scissors type knurlers IMO.

michael


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## kingmt01 (May 31, 2015)

aeroHAWK said:


> Here is Tom's web site:
> 
> http://tomstechniques.com/
> 
> (Google is your friend)


Thanks. I know it seems lazy but I was hoping for a direct link to the project saving me time looking for it. I do good to try to keep up on this site.


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## kingmt01 (Jun 1, 2015)

Found it this morning. I fell asleep last night when I started to look for it. Anyhow http://tomstechniques.com/clamp-knurling-tool/


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## itsme_Bernie (Jun 2, 2015)

The bump style knurlers usually have a place for normal toolholder on the opposite end, so they are good for that!   Hah hah


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## itsme_Bernie (Jun 2, 2015)

I love Toms Techniques, and OxToolCo also has a great video for beginning knurlers.


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## gheumann (Jun 3, 2015)

I knurl a lot of aluminum, mostly 1/2". The tool should be 90 degrees to the work. Speed isn't critical but slow is fine. You can hand or auto feed very slowly. The piece of info that hasn't surfaced here, though, in case you weren't aware (I wasn't until I thought about it) - Knurling is like two gears meshing (the knurl wheel or wheels and the work) - and that meshing can only happen when the work is at one of the precise diameters that matches the knurling wheels' pitch. You can't just knurl any diameter! There are tables and the math isn't that hard to do. If you don't know the pitch of your knurling wheels just roll the tool along a piece of paper for a few inches and count the lines, do the math. (I built a little excel sheet so I could figure the right diameters for different pitch wheels.) To test - touch the knurl tool to the work very lightly. Rotate the lathe by hand a little over one revolution. If the knurl lines on the work line up with themselves as they come around, the diameter is correct. If you get a new set of lines - it isn't.


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## Round in circles (Jun 4, 2015)

Greg, would you be so kind and put your eXcel work into photobucket and give us a link to see it .
I've been trying to understand what the relationship is of the code numbers on the knurling wheels  s wrt work diameters and actual pitch of the teeth . Your hard work may be of a big help to many folk .

Dave


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## royesses (Jun 4, 2015)

LMS has a calculator and formula on thire web site:
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/Reference/Knurler.php


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## gheumann (Jun 4, 2015)

FYI - Little Machine Shop's table threw me off - turned out my knurl wheels didn't match the pitches they had told me - I think they have corrected that now. But I ended up measuring my wheels.

I wasn't successful at loading the file to this site, so I put it here:  http://blowsmeaway.com/misc/Knurl-diameter-calculator.xlsx

If the diameter you're trying to approximate is in Column A (row 5 in this example) and the pitch in LPI is in Column B, then the closest proper knurling diameter can be calculated with this formula:

=ROUND(INT(A5*B5*PI())/B5/PI(),3)


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