5/8" diameter tennon cutting tool

[VECtor Calls]

 ???  I suppose Curtis's machines are a BIG thing (I'm speculating that he has some), but it may be interesting to see if he can comment about this from his dowel making, or having it done.

Parker

[Lonehowl]

There are power dowlers for any size but spendy of course, like arrow makers use.

Me and a buddy built a "tennon reducer" for a metal lathe at work once, just for duck calls.
Of course a metal lathe has power feed so it worked well. It was along the lines of what Al suggested, but when you get down to your target diameter, the blade had to be very sharp so it would shave and leave a nice cut. Still had to do a little finish work though, I dont know if you will ever get away without a little finishing work.

Along the lines of power dowlers, it would be neat if you had an attachment to put on say the tailstock side, kind of like a pencil sharpener type thingy, and chuck up your stock, already turned close to size, and run it through?(slowly) Stupid idear? Probably to much work anyway...

[Al_at_THO Game Calls]

Actually, that was one of my thoughts too.  Some attachment to cut the tennon, but I was thinking more on the end of the headstock.   

Interesting.....

AL @ THO

[Lonehowl]

Yeah, something to hold your workpiece, then maybe a simple blade, with a mt2 taper on it.. made from high speed steel. Or even something to  chuck  up in the Beal chuck.
I have a design in my head now,hmm, maybe someone will play with the idea more.

[dogcatcher]

There is no telling how many hours that amounted to days and then weeks and months I have spent on trying to short cut making tenons.  I know there is a method, I don't think anyone has found the perfect way, and I would bet that many a man hour based on work years have been spent on it.  No telling how many dollars have been spent not counting time invested.

Is there a perfect way?  I say yes, but it is expensive, machining a specialty tool is high dollar.  What is it and how it works?  I have several ideas, but no way to produce them in my shop or even in the shops I have access to.  Here the machine shops are oil field oriented and even in down times the cost of machine time is high. 
 
So this is what I do, I cut my blank 1/4" too long, drill the tone channel, and turn it to the basic shape leaving extra material, then with the extra 1/2" I turn a short 1/2" wide tenon about 1/32" too big.  This gives me the size I am looking for, then I breakout my 2" skew and cut the rest of it down to the size of the 1/2" long tenon.  Then I sand and it is usually as good as it gets.  Error rate, about 1 out of 10 on a bad day and as good as 10 good ones in a row.  When I turn stoppers I try to turn 10 at a time, even if I am only going to make one call.  It all boils down to repetition to get them to the right size.

Marvin

[Heirloom]

I'm a bit behid in my picture posting on this (on alot of stuff) but anyways, here is the little caliper i use for tennons and for o-ring grooves. i this case, this is the 3/4 tennon i'm making the o-ring groove in. but the princepal is the same for doing the tennon. The caliper cuts a 'reference' for turning the rest of the tennon.

notice how the left end of the caliper is ground to help it cut better? The wrench works ok but i seem to get some chattering with it. this way mnimizes that.

This is cutting the o-ring groove. The tennon was "reference cut" and turned to match the bottom of the reference cut. No sanding was needed. you don't need to weld the caliper but in the case of the o-ring, I wanted it to stay put so i didn't hav to reset it all the time. besides, the lock on this set of calipers didn't work. You can pick up these type of calipers for about $3 to $4 just about anywhere.

[Curmudgeon]

I can agree with every single post here. I use the wrench method but have never been satisfieed with it. I have made several of them and experimented with the angle of cut and all of them have left a really bad surface or only work if there is almost noting left to turn off.  I'll try getting it really sharp and see if that helps. I like Al's idea of a wider blade that could be removed and sharpened, seems like a do-able thing to make. Not looking for short cuts, just a means of reducing the number of ruined toneboards and being able to dial in a consistant fit.

I wonder if I could weld 3 or four wrenches together and....??