Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)
A while ago I tried turning with a bedan and I have really liked the tool. So after making a quick bedan with a piece of 6×6x150mm M2 HSS and a scrap of pine, I decided to make some nicer ones to use (I have a 3/8 Sorby bedan).Construction is pretty simple. Glue up some cherry and beech to make a blank. Turn a handle with a 3/16 starter hole in the end (it's a lot easier to drill an existing hole larger and deeper than it is to start a new one). Put on a piece of 1 brass tubing for a ferrule, and finish the handle with BLO and shellac, which is my homemade friction finish. Then drill out the hole to either 1/4 inch for the 6mm HSS, or 1/2 inch for the 12mm stock, and about an inch and a half (40mm) deep. Round the corners of one end of the steel – just knock the corners off with the grinder, and then pound the handle onto the steel using a mallet. Mix up some epoxy with turquoise dye and some powdered turquoise to fill in the end of the ferrule (it'll take two applications). Then finally grind the end of the steel to a 45 degree angle.Done! I thought they looked good on our lawn.As you can see in picture 2, I overheated the quarter inch bedan a little when grinding it. I'll take it back a bit when I get some spare time, but it still stays sharp relatively well. The half inch took a couple-three hours, but I was a lot better at quenching it in the water every time it started feeling the least bit warm.In picture 3, you can see the rays in the beech. I think they're pretty. The cherry has some cool grain too.Picture 4 is looking at the epoxy fill. Not necessary for a working tool, but I like the way it looks.Picture 5 is one of the blanks. I knocked the corners off with my octagonalizing jig and jack plane.I put another coat of BLO on the handles after shooting these pictures, too. I'll probably wipe on a coat or two of shellac over the next few days.