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Quick question on inserts and insert screws

#2
Tom;

What you are looking for wouldn't be called a threaded insert; it's really a brass locking collar. It's 1/4" ID smooth x about 3/8" OD, with a threaded hole in the side for a small setscrew.

Most guys I know who make their own knobs (which isn't very many...) make their own from brass bar stock or tubing. They epoxy the brass into the wood, and then drill and tap the hole for the setscrew through the wood and brass together. It makes sense to do it in that sequence.
 
#9
Tom, I wouldn't go that route. You need the metal sleeve over the pot shaft. If you try to use a threaded insert in the side wall of an all-wood knob, a tiny bit of overtightening of the setscrew will crack the knob in half. Even a little setscrew can exert a lot of force. Using the brass sleeve takes the load off of the wood.
 
#12
Tom;

That tubing is too thin in wall thickness. The setscrew wouldn't get any solid threads in the wall.

Do you know someone who has a small metal lathe? The part you need would take maybe two minutes to make up.

Here's how I would do it:

Make up the inserts from, say, 7/16" dia round brass stock. Saw it off into slugs about 5/8" long. Pop them in the lathe and drill the ID to 1/4" dia, to 1/2" deep. Not all the way through the back; leave it like a cup.

Cut a strip of your Spalted Swamp Snakewood to the thickness of the height of your knobs, and a little wider than the diameter.

Drill a row of 7/16" holes in the strip, 5/8" deep, with a Forstner bit.

Epoxy the brass slugs into the holes.

Tip the strip up on edge, and drill the pilot holes for the setscrews, right down the row. Through the wood and one wall of the slug. Run a tap through each one to make the threads.

Use a template to draw the plan view of the knob on the bottom side of the strip, and bandsaw the knobs apart from the strip.

This gives you the basic shape of the knob, mounted on a good metal core. That gives you a way to hold them securely while you shape and finish the outside. You can make up a handle with a piece of 1/4" steel rod sticking out. Lock the knob blank onto it with the setscrew. Or a router fixture with a 1/4" pin. Or put a 1/4" rod in the chuck of a lathe. However you decide that you want to shape the knob.
​
If you can't find anyone locally to make up these slugs for you, let me know and I can make them up for you. It would take me less time than it took to write this!
 

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