Tips on using a pin spinner?

[whitebuffalo58]

I just got my first one in from Jantz. Anyone got any tips on usage before I try it out? Looks simple enough, but thought there might be a few tricks that someone could share.

Thanks, WB

[orvet]

Be sure you use some lubrication with your spinner. If you don’t they can chafe & you won’t get as good a head on the pin.
I use a drop of Ultra Lube on the end of the pin stock before I spin a head on to it.
Ultra lube is very heavy, almost a gel so it stays on the pin well. This little bottle is probably more than you will ever use just for spinning pins: http://usaknifemaker.com/ultra-lube-cut ... seman.html

If you have a variable speed drill press set it to the lowest or next to lowest setting. It is not about the downward pressure that spins the head, but the cutting action of the spinner.

Before you start to spin a head on a piece of pin stock, flattened the end with the file or belt sander. Make a flat end then slightly bevel the edge, not pointed but a very slight bevel. I usually do this by holding a piece of pin stock at a 30° to 45° angle to my belt sander (while it is running) and lightly touching the pin stock to the belt and giving it a quick spin so that the edge becomes beveled.
If you have a rough or jagged end it will sometimes result in burrs of brass at the edge of your pinhead.

Another important thing to remember is to clean your spinner occasionally. Leftover brass will build up around the cutting surfaces and at the bottom of the cup, especially if you don't use good lubrication. It is necessary to clean that out from time to time.

I put the pin stock in a drill press vise to hold it secure and the spinner is in the drill press.
Only allow about the thickness of the pin to stick up above the jaws of the vice. If too much pin is sticking above the jaws of the vise the pin will bend.

If you are spinning a head on a pin that is already installed in a knife you need to support the backside of the pin. I do this with a setscrew that has a cupped end, mounted securely in a heavy metal weight. You could do the same thing with a setscrew clamped in your drill press vise.

The first few times you try to spin a pin, you will probably have limited success. It is a process that takes practice. The more you practice, the easier it becomes.

I have the spinner is available from the knife supply houses. I believe they are made of hardened steel. The most effective spinners I have came from the Camillus factory and are made of carbide. Last week I finally located a company that makes carbide tooling. I am hoping they will be able to make some carbide pen spinners patterned after the ones I got from the Camillus factory. I'm going to try to make it down to this company in next week or two. If they are successful at duplicating the Camillus carbide spinners at a reasonable price I will have a few made to sell in my AAPK store.

Here is a good thread on Pin Spinners. It may answer some of your questions as well: http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... it=spinner
Here is another thread that deals with pin spinning: http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... it=spinner


After you read all those threads and try to spin a few pins, let us know how you did and if you have any more questions.

[1967redrider]

Thanks for the usaknifemaker link, orvet. I spent a good hour today drooling over forges and grinders. Sweet custom-made knives too!

[orvet]

Thanks for the usaknifemaker link, orvet. I spent a good hour today drooling over forges and grinders. Sweet custom-made knives too!

Tracey Mickley, the owner of USA Knifemaker’s Supply is a really nice guy. I have talked to him on the phone and he goes out of his way to be helpful. He also carries some unique supplies that are hard to find elsewhere. His USA Knifemaker’s brand of epoxy is about all I use any more, though other supply houses carry the same brand, I try to buy it from Tracey. One nice thing about his website is that he takes PayPal for payment. You don’t have to transfer $$ from PP to the bank and then pay him. It is sometimes more convenient for me to pay from PP. Also I find his prices as good or better than other houses.

[whitebuffalo58]

Well either i'm missing something or just not sure what to expect from this spinner. All I can seem to do with it, is put a nice crown on top of the pin. It will roll a small lip on to the pin, but once it bottoms out, that's it. If the pin holes are reasonably tight, the lip it does put on would probably be adequate, but certainly not overkill by any means. As it is, seems like every pin would have to be a very precise length. Too long, it'll bottom out before it tightens to the handle, too short, and it won't roll enough of a lip to hold.
I did all my samples using 3/32" stock. (both brass and n/s) That is one of the sizes specified when I bought the spinner. I tried chucking the spinner and clamping the pin and also chucking the pin and clamping the spinner. Pretty much the same result both ways. I used Vaseline to lubricate and tried speeds from 500-1100 rpm. I tried everything from a light touch to down right "look out she's gonna blow" preasure. I also checked the spinner regularly to see if it needed cleaned out. Everything I tried, seemed to have basically the same result, a nicely rounded head, small lip and no ability to go beyond a certain point.
The best result I can imagine getting, is to peen the pin and simply use the spinner to put a nice rounded head on it. Not really what I was hopin' for.
Is it possible that I may have gotten a bad spinner or am I doin' somethin' wrong?

WB

[orvet]

WB- What you are getting is probably a function of the spinner design and maybe in part the failure of your lubricant. Try using cutting oil, which will stand up to the heat better than Vaseline.
Mostly I think it is a limitation of the design of your spinner. Can you pic of your spinner, especially the end?

Some spinner are too cupped on the end, they are too deep.
Here is the type of spinner design I find works best -

Camillus Spinner top.jpg (38.95 KiB) Viewed 9229 times

Even with this design you can’t get a head larger than the cup of the spinner.
Are your spinners hardened steel or carbide?


I have had better luck spinning heads with spinners I made from a hardened set screw (most set screws are very hard) and making it to follow this Camillus design than I have had with the steel spinners I have bought from knife supply houses.

[whitebuffalo58]

Mines a whole lot different then that one Dale. I'll see if I can get a pic here in a bit. It's double ended. One end is for 1/32"-1/16" pins, the other supposedly for 3/32"-1/8". I'm actually hoping it will work with 5/64" pins, but havn't tried it yet. I did try one suggestion I read, and that was to practice by pinning a few backsprings together. (I used 3/32" for that, too) The outer rim of the spinner hit before the pin could seat down tight.
The primary purpose for buying a spinner now, was to use on a few Colonial Suresnaps. The original handles are a marble composite. Some are good enough to use, but have shrunk a bit and that's resulted in some of the pin holes becoming elongated. The pins that run all the way through the handles are 5/64". Two of the holes, I could drill out for 3/32" pins, but not the main pivot. It has to be 5/64". I thought the spinner would be a good choice by forming a large enough head to hide and secure the deformed holes without putting the plastic handles under the stress created by peening. Not to mention, being able to better control the blade pivot for just that right amount of play. The heads won't need to cup out an abnormal amount, but quite a bit more then i've been able to do so far.
I do have cutting oil, i'll try it and see if it helps.

WB

[ea42]

WB, slow steady pressure is the key, it'll likely take 20 or 30 seconds to spin a decent head, and that's after doing a thousand or so knives! It's important that the spinner head is larger than the width of the pin stock in order to get a decent width on the head, and as Dale said use plenty of oil. If you've got nothing else plain old motor oil works fine. Dab it liberally on the spinner with a q-tip. Be sure to counterbore the covers if they're jigged or curved in order to have a flat surface for the pin head to come into contact with. Cut the pins short, I usually don't have them sticking more than 1/16" (maybe just a bit more at first) above the cover, or another way to judge is to have the spinner about 1/16" above the cover once it's in contact with the pin. At least in my experience any more than that and you risk mushrooming the head if it spreads beyond the edge of the spinner. There's a lot of trial and error involved in getting that pin length correct, that's for sure! Each spinner is different as far as depth. What you're looking for is the head of the spun pin to be protruding just a bit below the spinner so you don't wind up cutting into the cover with the spinner before the head comes into contact with it. If as you said you're beginning to see a head on the pin, keep on pressing, maybe just a bit harder. The spinner should continue cutting and spreading until you stop, just keep it oiled, and watch that the pin doesn't start spinning at the same rate as the spinner, this'll stop everything cold.

Eric

[orvet]

I have a length of pin stock clamped in my drill press vise so it won’t spin to put a head on one end of the pin to start with. These heads may look better than the heads spun after installing the pin in the knife, so I put this in on the mark side.

When you install the rocker pin the tension of the springs will keep it from spinning most of the time. Often, especially with stag or other uneven surfaces the spinner will cut into the handle. So far as I can tell it is nearly impossible to prevent. I have seen spinner marks on very old knives.

[muskrat man]

I bought a Jantz spinner a few years ago, never could get it to do what I wanted. The spinner CAMCO sent me works like a dream though. It's got to be with the design.

[whitebuffalo58]

Yep, that's what I was afraid of MM. Here's the one I got from Jantz and a couple of pins that are the best I could get out of it. I filled up an old medicine bottle with thread cutting oil and used it to dip the spinner ever so often. It helped alot and these are much better then my first attempts. Still not quite what I was hopin' for though. When this spinner bottoms out, that's it. No matter what you do, it'll roll the head to this point and it's done. I guess I was under the assumption that it would just keep rolling it until I said when. But that's not how this one works. I think what will work, is to hand peen to swell the ends snug. Then top it off with the spinner to dress 'em out. Otherwise, you'd have to be deadly accurate on just how much pin to leave sticking out before spinning.

This is the smaller end.

WB

[orvet]

I guess I was under the assumption that it would just keep rolling it until I said when. But that's not how this one works.

While I can get a bigger head with the Camillus spinners, even they have a limit as to how big the head will get.
Another thing to remember, the smaller sizes of pins will spin heads easier than the bigger ones. 1/16" are pretty easy to spin, bit the larger the pin the harder it is to get the head on the pin. The 1/8” pins are really hard to get a decent head on them even with the Camillus carbide spinners.

I have 3 sizes of Camillus type spinners; 15 gauge (.062-.075”), 14 gauge (.080-.087”) & 13 gauge (.093-.125”). The smaller the wire the easer it is to spin a head on it.

[whitebuffalo58]

This was the only spinner I found available through Jantz. Here's my first attempt at using it on a knife.

This old Camillus was my first go at rebuilding an electricians knife. With this much wear to the spear blade, I probably wouldn't have bothered. But, figured it would make a good candidate to try spinning pins on, too. (killing 2 birds with one stone?) Electricians knives are good ones to work on. I even incorporated the liner lock over to the spear blade.

Anyway, the spinner worked better then I thought it was going to. Length of the exposed ends of the pins is crucial! I don't mind too much, the "cut-in" around the pins, but don't like that it's just a given with using this spinner on 3/32" pins. (not always a desireable effect)
Something i'm thinking about, is chucking the spinner up in a drill and belt grinding the large end down to a smaller size. (I can't imagine i'll be spinning to many 1/8" pins) If I can taper it down specifically for 5/64"-3/32" pins, I think it would pretty much illiminate the cut-in. Or, does anyone know where you can buy spinners in various sizes? Is there a set of them available?

I ended up sanding the heads off the smaller 1/16" handle pins, (don't ask why there are so many ) but the smaller end on the spinner worked fine. No cut-in, but I concluded that, it's because the small end is specific to 1/16" pins. It probably would cut-in on 1/32" pins.

Overall, I think i've got a decent grasp on what to expect from spinners. They aren't all I expected, but with time and practice, I think it'll be a good tool to have around.

Thanks for the all the help and advice, WB

[orvet]

It worked pretty well for you considering it is your first attempt.
It will get easier with practice.

Nice job.