Hey there!
It's later than I usually shoot a video.
It's 5:30.
[tripod creaking] I'm starting a video
right now.
I just got back from my summer [laughs].
[electronic beep] I just got back
from my summer vacation.
[tripod creaking] I'm a bachelor right now.
My wife is still enjoying some vacating,
and so I'm staying a little later 'cause, you know.
Anyway, what I have here is a piece of wood.
This piece of wood is going to be,
as per the title of this video,
my storage for annular cutters.
What is an annular cutter?
I'm so glad you've asked.
I covered them recently on the channel,
but in order to talk about annular cutters,
I first wanna talk about drill bits,
so give me a second.
Okay, so. [clears throat]
Oh wait, one more thing.
All right, I've got my teaching aids.
[metal clacking] There we go.
Let us say you are a maker, and you think to yourself,
"Maker," which is a funny thing to say to yourself,
but you say to yourself,
"Maker, I would like to make a hole of a certain size,"
and that size may be an inch and a half, for instance.
Now there are a lot of different ways
to make an inch and a half hole in deep material like this.
This is not gonna be what I'm making a hole in,
but it'll serve to tell the tale.
You wanna make an inch and a half diameter hole in this.
You have some options.
Now, as a beginning maker with access to affordable tools,
the first way beginning makers most often
drill a hole of that size is using this, a hole saw.
Plumbers, there's many different kinds of these,
there's abrasive ones, there's toothed ones,
and it's good to set yourself up with
a fairly complete system of hole saws.
I have a whole drawer of them.
Very, very useful things.
You can cut sideways into steel pipe
to make roll cages for your car, yeah.
These things,
I know I describe them as the bottom of the ladder
'cause they're affordable and they're everywhere.
They're at every hardware store you wanna go to.
Well, you've got a pilot drill here,
which is not sticking out far enough, but anyway,
but then this is what does the cutting.
Unlike a drill,
and I've got an inch and a half drill here just to show.
But this drill works exactly the same way as this drill,
so it makes it easier to see.
This drill you can see goes into a hole,
and each of these leading edges acts like a chisel,
pulling out material.
It's a laborious and energy packed way of excavating a hole.
Whereas with the hole saw you are only excavating,
you are only doing work
in this little profile around the perimeter.
So instead of pi r squared that diameter,
you're dealing with the area inside the width of this,
like, I don't know, 60 thou?
Millimeter and a half?
Wide tooth.
So, this is a great way to make an inch and a half hole.
Edge finish, not amazing.
The first bit that is the kind of tools
that someone has to tell you about,
and I know I've said this in other videos on this channel
but it bears repeating,
is the forstner bit.
Now this is a bit that is like,
it's just not gonna be in the main aisle at Sears,
even though it might be.
I swear, these are things that like,
when you tell people about them and they haven't heard,
it feels like it's come from aliens,
because these things are amazing.
A full set of forstner bits is like 30 bucks,
and yeah you could spend a hundred bucks,
but frankly I still don't even need ones that good.
I abuse them too much,
so I buy the cheap sets and cycle through.
Forstner bits are incredible.
They make beautiful holes.
They're great for pegging furniture together,
and stuff like that.
But a forstner bit, as you can see, has these chisels.
It's meant to go through solid stock.
It's not meant to widen a hole,
because it needs to balance against that point there.
And so it also is doing a lot of work to excavate the hole.
It can do it and it's awesome,
but it is still a lot of work.
Enter, the annular cutter.
John Knoll, of Lucas Film and Mandalorian fame,
I mean special effects genius from decades back,
but those are recent things.
John Knoll is a wonderful machinist,
and sent me a video recently that said, "You should,"
sent me a text a few months ago and said,
"You should know about annular cutters."
Now this is a cutter.
As you can see, that operates much like the hole saw, right?
It's only cutting around this perimeter.
But as you can see,
it is a much finer crafted piece of equipment.
Each of these leading edges has an edge on it,
so the surface finish of the hole from an annular cutter is,
it's like everything you ever wanted out of a forstner bit.
Now I am profligate in my tool collection sometimes,
when I'm excited about something.
And so I got excited about the annular cutters,
and I bought a set, which is like six or seven of them.
And they were really useful.
And then I kept having occasions where I wanted to use them,
but I didn't have the right size.
So I looked it up and you can buy
every size of annular cutter,
from 7/16 all the way to two inches, by 16ths.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
But when you get to this size,
they're like 50 bucks a piece.
[tripod creaking] Well, reader,
I bought them all.
Yeah.
[tripod creaking]
I figured, I'm always gonna have these.
I'm gonna be so happy to have these.
I just did a gig, I can afford this.
Let's do it, right?
So yeah, I invested [tripod creaking]
in a set of, I can't even,
I don't even know what the number is.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25...
29 of them.
[tripod creaking] We're gonna do 26
in this holder,
because the three big ones are specialty.
There's always compromise.
And I'm about to set this up into the mill
and slowly make this [tripod creaking]
into a holder for all of the annular cutters.
They will gang up like this
and they will sit in pockets that they made themselves.
They will sit in pockets that they made themselves.
And that will also protect their edges.
It will keep them from getting too dusty.
It's a great way to store them.
Sorry, yeah, there we go.
So this will hold 26 of my,
26 of my bits.
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, I thought I was showing you
the drilling of the holes with the annular cutters,
but I wasn't.
So I drilled the first set of five cutters off camera.
Very sorry.
Very, very sorry.
Very sorry.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
It's holding them beautifully.
That's exactly what I want out of a holder.
Solid holding.
[cutter clattering]
[tool clattering]
[machine creaking]
[machine whirring]
[wood grinding]
[air hissing]
[cutter clattering]
[tool clattering]
[machine whirring] [wood grinding]
[wheel squeaking]
[air hissing]
[tool clattering]
[cutter clattering]
[tool clattering]
[wood grinding]
[wheel squeaking]
[air hissing]
[tool clattering]
[cutter scrapes]
[machine creaks]
[tool clattering]
[cutters clattering]
[machine whirring]
Ooh!
Look at you spinning all catawampus.
[machine whirring]
Much more like what I think you should be doing.
Hang on, let's get a view on you.
That's a little better.
Good.
[machine whirring]
[wood grinding]
[cutter clattering] [tool clattering]
[Adam blowing]
[machine whirring] Yep.
Yeah, you gotta do 'em both.
[machine whirring] [tool clattering]
[air hissing]
[machine whirring]
[wood grinding]
There we go.
Better.
[machine creaking]
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
Yes, that's another build! [thumps]
You know what it is.
The moment of truth.
Hang on.
Ah. [tripod creaking]
Alright.
Sit on my stool.
Put my tools away.
Let's see here.
[cutter scrapes and thumps]
[cutter scrapes]
[Adam blowing]
[cutter scrapes and thumps]
[Adam blowing]
[cutter scrapes and thumps]
[Adam blowing]
[cutter scrapes]
[cutter thumps]
[cutter scrapes]
[Adam blowing]
[cutter scrapes]
[Adam blowing]
This is me, I make everything slightly too [blows] tight.
[Adam blowing]
[cutter scrapes]
[cutter thumps]
[cutter scrapes]
[cutter scrapes and thumps]
This is satisfying, but it's not even oddly satisfying.
It's very explicitly understandable why it's satisfying.
Oh yeah.
I like things.
Ah, I like this!
Oh!
A little swarf in there. [blows]
[cutter scrapes]
[cutter thumps]
[cutter scrapes]
Yep, they're all retrievable.
[cutter scrapes]
[cutter thumps]
[cutter scrapes]
Dude.
Yeah, I'm really happy.
I know.
These are outside, but that's okay.
These are rare sometimes foods. [laughs]
Come here.
[tripod creaking]
Come here.
There you go.
Oh, look at this beautiful pie that I baked.
It is using a lot of tool steel and grinding,
in some very precise ways.
but this is [smooches]
like, the most beautiful drill set, hole saw ever.
It cost a fortune.
It's completely worth it to me!
Very happy about this.
[metal clatters] Oh!
Oh, look at that!
Slides right in!
[doors clatter]
I made it exactly the size to fit in the door.
[tripod creaking]
I'm pleased.
Tail sticks.
[clapperboard clacking]
Thank you guys for joining me. [laughs]
That was unnecessary.
That's just something, [tripod creaking]
that you do in the film industry.
Tail sticks.
[tripod creaking]
We'll get to this build later on in the summer.
I'm sorry you had to see it and get tempted by it right now
but for right now it's all just annular cutters.
Oh wow, I can actually see through these.
I don't know where I'll put these.
I just, I have three.
I have three.
So I'll just make an extra little holder for these three,
and they'll live there.
We're done, I don't need to say anything more.
Why am I still talking?
It's because I've been away for so long from the camera
and I feel like I can, I wanna keep talking. [laughs]
See you guys next time.
[robotic beeps]