I finally decided to try my hand at building some reamers for myself, so I visited a local flea market and found what I thought looked like perfect reamer material. I found two old solid white fiberglass rods with similar tapers (to each other), and close to the tapers of some blanks that I have lined up. I stripped them bare, and by working back and forth from one to the other, I managed to produce four nice long reamers whereby the nose end of each consecutive piece is just a little smaller diameter than the butt section of the one preceding it. I used 1" wide sanding belts with #80 grit, and in a failed attempt to split the first one into two 1/2" pieces, I ended up cutting it whereby one of the pieces ended up with a taper along much of it's length.

Aggravated at first, I realized that the perfect 1/2" width did not at all play nicely with the thinnest reamer segment which was about 1/4" at the tip. The tapered strip which was about 1/6" at its thinnest wound very nicely around the thin segment of the blank. My initial mistake turned into a success! :-) But I do have a couple of questions:

I actually set out to find solid blanks to create the reamers, and they did turn out beautifully. BUT...I'm not sure what I can do to mount the butt ends into a drill, as there is no hollow aspect to insert a steel rod that COULD be mounted into a drill chuck. I don't think inserting the ends directly into a chuck will work very well, at least not after repeated use. I foresee those ends getting battered and soft, eventually making them useless. Any ideas as to what I may be able to do?

And I have seen mentioned in several places in other threads that if and when the belt strips lose their punch, the strips can be repeatedly replaced. Is that so? Do those strips peel off fairly readily (they were applied with contact cement)? Is one able to remove all the dried contact cement that covers the spiral gap that was created when the belt was applied...ie...create a brand new surface on which to apply new material? And if so, how is the best way to approach this?

Hello Ernie.

Go to "Flex Coat Co" training videos.

Tight Wraps & Tighter Lines.

Maybe you can find a metal male ferrule to fit the butt end of your reamers. Use contact cement to attach your sand paper strips to the fiberglass blank. It holds up to frictional heat much better than most epoxies. When you need to replace the sand paper strips, the old used strips will peel off fairly easily.
Norm

Ernie, I went down the exact path you did except that I procured my fiberglass sections from a blank maker here in PA. I was successful at cutting a 30”x1” sanding belt lengthwise, and bonded the spiraled belt sections to the fiberglass rod sections with Rod Bond epoxy. From a previously discarded printer I had salvaged three metal rollers. Short sections from these were bonded into the butt of each reamer. To make the metal rod sections fit the ID of the reamers I used my belt sander to create a slight step-down. Better precision could have been obtained on my lathe but I didn’t go to that much trouble. As all of my builds are on fiberglass blanks, it’s nice to be able to ream 3/8” ID grips to .450 quickly and precisely.

Sanding belt wear hasn’t been a problem so far.

"The greatest barrier to discovery is not ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge" - Daniel J. Boorstin