Assembling the Cap

The cap of the Big Daddy tamper is made up of several pieces: the stainless-steel tool or pick; a threaded brass rod; a piece of brass trim; a piece of decorative trim, usually ivory micarta; and a piece of wood that matches the barrel. 

For purposes of brevity, I haven't pictured the steps involved in preparing these pieces.  The pick or tool is cut and shaped from a stainless-steel rod.  The brass trim is cut from a 1/8" thick brass bar that is 5/8" wide.  The ivory micarta is 3/8" thick and is cut on the bandsaw to approximately 3/4" square.  The wood piece is roughly 1-1/2" long and is drilled with a 1/4" bit to a depth of about 3/4."  The end of the wood piece also has a small shallow hole drilled in it to accommodate the live center that will be used in the final turning step.

These pieces are shown below.  Note that the surfaces of the brass and ivory micarta trim pieces have been rough-sanded to accept epoxy:

Assembly of these pieces requires a few separate steps.  First, I use epoxy to join the the pick and the threaded rod.  Once the epoxy dries, I use a wire brush (on the lathe) to remove any excess epoxy.  Then I epoxy the threaded rod/pick assembly into the wooden piece.

Once the epoxy has dried, I use the lathe to remove excess epoxy and square the inner surface of the wood to the threaded rod.  This is important because it will ensure that no gaps occur between the wood and the trim pieces.

The final assembly step is to epoxy the ivory micarta and brass trim pieces to the wood/threaded rod/pick assembly.  The completed cap assembly looks like this (note, however, that these pieces really haven't been epoxied together -- if they had, there would be lots of excess epoxy between the brass, ivory micarta, and wood):

Next: Final Turning

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Last modified: 12/08/02