Hey folks, just a quick question with regard to burnt cork. I had never work with these before...glued the rings up and have really struggled to internally ream to slide over the butt section. I burned out a medium reamer, where the adhesives in the composite cork pulled the abrasive off my reamer! I guess next time I will predrill each ring to the mic'd diameter of the rod and then glue up prior to turning. Is this how most builders handle it?

I always ream any cork close to size than rea.

Mike

I think Mike meant to say, "drill close to size and then ream". Evidently the adhesive binder in that cork is rather hard because it is more difficult to ream than cork or standard burl cork so the closer to size it can be drilled prior to reaming the better. Reaming with a rat tailed file operated in reverse works well. If using a standard grit reamer I recommend keeping the rpm fairly slow to prevent heat build up.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Oops!!!!! Thans, Stan