[Woodwind] Tone hole Cutter

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi !
Here is a very specific tool made for shaping the top of a tone hole chimney.
This is for tone holes that will be covered by a key. It is crucial that the pad of the key has a neat contact with the wood in order to avoid any leakage.
The contact surface is actually reduced to a single ring if the tone hole has a slightly spherical top.

Here is what we want to obtain :


And here is how it is done :
First, a guiding pin is turned down, given the diameter of the tone hole.
And then a custom ground shaping tool is used to cut the spherical shape of what will be the cutting edge.


Then I use my milling attachment to drill 6 transversal flat bottom holes with a small carbide end mill cutter.


This will form cutting teeth




Then I use a cutting disk on a Dremel to grind down the back of each tooth.




Here I'm using my transversal drilling attachment on the lathe with this tool.


Close up




Finished Job