permanently bonding tungsten to other materials?

[BrokenBiker]

want to make a few scribes and awls for myself and my father.

scribes will have a stainless body, awls will have brass bodies and all will have a 2.4mm bit of tungsten as the pointy bit.

best way to permanently bond them in place?

i have a 2.4mm cobalt drill that is pretty accurate so can get a decent fit between the body and the tungsten, thinking some form of loctite or 2 part epoxy maybe?

been using a bit of blue tungsten as a scribe for a while now and suprrised at how well its held its point, marked out approx 700 cuts on mild steel and its still as sharp as it was for the first line.

 

[Maker]

Any retaining compound should do it, Loctite 638 is my go-to.

 

[Parm]

Make it an interference fit ?

 

[Agroshield]

Make it an interference fit ?

Might be difficult at that small diameter. A rule of thumb is one thou per inch or one part in one thousand to be units-agnostic. 1/1000 of 2.4mm would be challenging to produce.

 

[Wallace]

Tig welder, my tungstens stick to welds nicely.

 

[Kram]

Silverflo 55 is somewhat unnessasary but equally a good way to do it.

 

[RichardM]

Loctite or epoxy, I use 3.2 mm tungsten for mine.

 

[BrokenBiker]

Cheers all, loctite it is

 

[Turbo]

Soft solder might work on the brass handle but loctite would be easier.

 

[Kram]

Another option is to make the scribe bodys with a thin wall area that can be formed/swaged around the tungsten. If the bodies are to be knurled that may be enough to do it with the tungsten fitted in place.

 

[Pete.]

You got a new lathe. Make a collet ring and drill/thread the handle to use tig tungsten collets. It will take a bit longer but you'll learn a lot and you can knock out several on a single setup which will also teach you to plan operations.

 

[Parm]

Might be difficult at that small diameter. A rule of thumb is one thou per inch or one part in one thousand to be units-agnostic. 1/1000 of 2.4mm would be challenging to produce.

For my scribes I started with a drilled hole, then polished down the diameter of the scriber using 120 grit emery paper till it was a tight fit. Then pressed it home between the Chuck and drill stock

 

[hotponyshoes]

I had some stuff from a place that closed down recently,
They were making this sort of thing which is some sort of tool steel with a carbide tip



I think this is the stuff they were binding them in with, k-mat DSP (which I think is Diamond Setting Powder)

I can't quite make out the part number but I'd guess you'll need heat to set it (They had quite a sophisticated induction heater system)
If you can work out what it is and if it might will work I can send you some as I've got a big drum of it..

 

[BrokenBiker]

You got a new lathe. Make a collet ring and drill/thread the handle to use tig tungsten collets. It will take a bit longer but you'll learn a lot and you can knock out several on a single setup which will also teach you to plan operations.

i had thought of that, but for a few 1 offs it seemed like a lot more work than was necessary. im a huge fan of the simplest solutions as they generally are quicker and usually wrk just as well as anything else

 

[ukracer]

want to make a few scribes and awls for myself and my father.

scribes will have a stainless body, awls will have brass bodies and all will have a 2.4mm bit of tungsten as the pointy bit.

best way to permanently bond them in place?

i have a 2.4mm cobalt drill that is pretty accurate so can get a decent fit between the body and the tungsten, thinking some form of loctite or 2 part epoxy maybe?

been using a bit of blue tungsten as a scribe for a while now and suprrised at how well its held its point, marked out approx 700 cuts on mild steel and its still as sharp as it was for the first line.

I used loctite 641 when I made silencers out of Brass...

 

[Pete.]

i had thought of that, but for a few 1 offs it seemed like a lot more work than was necessary. im a huge fan of the simplest solutions as they generally are quicker and usually wrk just as well as anything else

Make them a simple taper then and split the male section. Any taper less than 7 degrees included angle is considered self-holding. Make it 4-5 degrees or so, drill the end of your handle, taper on the end, slit the taper and neck the base so it pulls in then use the same setting on your compound to turn an inside taper on a small locking collet ring. Put the tungsten in, knock the ring onto the taper and it'll hold forever.