Kitchen Tools - Stainless handles and rods for drink stirring rods/swizzle sticks.

[Paul Jones]

This is another part to my "Kitchen Tool" series for stainless steel tools I made for my wife and friends.

The following photos include all new stainless handles for drink stirring rods/swizzle sticks. I made a series of 16 handles for the stirring rods using 3/8" diameter 303 stainless steel rod. The 3/8" diameter stainless steel rods were reduced to 0.364 diameter before knurling the 21 pitch knurl (by the way I used the Android app Kurling Calculator to calculate the pre-knurling diameter).

Dimensions to the stirring rod.



Plans and examples of the 303 stainless steel stirring rods.



Kurling the 21 pitch into the 0.364 diameter 303 stainless steel rods



Machining 0.052" wide grooves into the stainless steel handles. The 0.052" grooves were machined with a right-hand Nikcole Mini-systems tool holder and carbide inserts (must engage the stainless steel rod slowly or the Nikcole carbide insert will chip). Also, AR Warner makes the equivalent T15 inserts for this type of tool holder and I have used these with success and the Ti5 is not as fragile as the carbide inserts.



The separate ball-ends of the stirring rods were created with a custom ground HSS form cutting tool, balls filed to finished sized, polished, drilled for a press fit and glued with Loctite 620 (high temp formula for 450 degrees F), rod reversed and ball re-mounted back in the lathe collet and finally finished on the bottom-end. There is no easy way around this.



Thank you for looking,

Paul Jones

[Toolmaker51]

This is another part to my "Kitchen Tool" series for stainless steel tools I made for my wife and friends. The following photos include all new stainless handles for drink stirring rods/swizzle sticks. I made a series of 16 handles for the stirring rods...
Paul Jones

I'm humbled; stainless, knurled, plentiful, homemade and distinctive. All I have aren't even souvenir grade from Vegas and Reno, ho hum.
Paul Jones posts a lot of party and snack ware projects, it may be bulk [or entire] collection of food service utensils at the Jones's share those attributes.

[DIYer]

Thanks Paul Jones! We've added your Swizzle Sticks to our Culinary category,
as well as to your builder page: Paul Jones's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Swizzle Sticks by Paul Jones

tags: hand tools

[Paul Jones]

Thank you Toolmaker51,

The "Kitchen Tools" series with distinctively made stainless steel handles for small forks, small spoons, pickle forks, stirring rods, etc. all started when my wife asked me to make the "Cake Tester" as gifts for our friends and family (see http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/c...1751#post44061 ). The success of the cake tester became so popular that we branched-out into other common kitchen utensils for gifts. The cool thing about making the stainless steel kitchen tools is now the purpose of the machine tools in the garage are viewed differently and have a purpose that our friends and family can appreciate.

Regards,

Paul Jones

[Toolmaker51]

Thank you Toolmaker51,
.....now the purpose of the machine tools in the garage are viewed differently and have a purpose that our friends and family can appreciate.
Regards,
Paul Jones

I do that, in a different way. I make certain they know every tangible object they can imagine, results from Toolmakers work. Along with depth of Machinists, Welders, Fabricators and industry in general; producing not just items but equipment making their first world life a reality.

Right down to the screws in their eyeglasses, buttons on their blouse, that cheap little inkpen, or brand new car. And the plane flying overhead, the paved road they traveled, lumber in homes...
It's like an untelevised "How It's Made" on steriods. Yeah, I've written them to film episodes following a products from mining to store. Nothing so far.

I've mentioned it many times; this isn't a mere hobby. Scrapbooking, stamp collecting, souvenirs, are hobbies. Oddly enough, also dependent on Toolmakers.

[PJs]

Thanks for the write up and share, Paul. Beauties and timeless design...high end for sure. Loved the profile tool for the ball, but as you say a lot of ops. I might have bought a box of 100 304SS balls, Ø.188 from McMaster for $8...But it wouldn't have been as much fun as making tiny things. I notice on the drawing you had a Ø .116 hole for the rod. Was the rod off the shelf Ø .125 for the press fit? Cool and Classy!

[Paul Jones]

PJs,

I wish I had discovered the McMaster-Car source of 0.250" dia. 316 stainless steel balls. These might have been easier to use and another way to do this using a miniature design of the sphere drilling fixture that Marv published at http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/s...1534#post74617 .

The odd dimension of 0.116" is because I found a supply of 3 mm stainless steel rods that were slightly undersized by 0.05 mm. A #32 drill was the closest size for a sliding fit and then the rod glued in place with Loctite 620.

Regards,

Paul

[PJs]

Paul,

I've used McMaster-Carr for years in industry designing prototypes and home because of the huge variety they carry. You could probably get the Ø.250 SS balls from a local Ace Hardware or Osh in their fastener bins although I have a hard time justifying cost of a few when I can get a box for the same price as the few and put them away for future projects. My point was only from an arm chair and doesn't preclude the excellent profile tool or the hand-made Chi you infused in your stir sticks.

I guess I was thinking infernally again with the 1/8" rod and didn't even consider metric or wire size...@2.95mm that is a Nice fit.

[Paul Jones]

Thank you PJs and I like your suggestions.

Ironically, I am slowly coming back around to using metric measurements more and more. I used the metric measurements in college and grad school for my work in Geophysics but had to rethink in Imperial measurements while working in oil and gas exploration for a USA-based company. In fact we sometimes mixed our data with both types of measurement systems for rock velocities,locations and total drill string depths to TD. You just got use to it and didn't make mistakes or you could be off by a factor of 3+ (a bad day indeed).

At times it is easier to work with metric measurements in the design and machining.

Regards, Paul

[PJs]

Paul,

Me too on the metric/imperial system use...from school to all the years in engineering. I got used to most conversions also, but those lbf/ozf to those pesky newtons or Vs/Versa and the torque conversions had to be put on paper and cross checked for me to be sure. And who in the heck came up the the magical kilopond (land of 1000 ponds (pondus-weight) and did they kill newton by the meter, 75 years later? ;-) Thank goodness for the converters built in or could be programed into the TI's, Hp's & spreadsheets and sure you had big computers and diligent programming...now we have apps for that. ;-) Some how it doesn't seem so important anymore and the old Stealers Wheel song; Stuck in the middle...comes to mind here. The dichotomy it has created is a bit ironic, but it is what it is...perhaps it makes us more versatile.

Didn't work with metric materials much other than fasteners and most of the machines were imperial as well as machinists. Only systems or components for out of country use would be converted if necessary, and I designed and built the drill machines to build either...thank goodness arcsec and quadrature counts are pretty straight forward.

You just got use to it and didn't make mistakes or you could be off by a factor of 3+ (a bad day indeed).

I can see that at 10k feet, earballing that to 3k meters would be substantial let alone minuscule differential sound velocities or noise at that depth...quite a small margin for error and would definitely be a bad day on goat rock.

Hi-Regards, PJ