In response to my Toolbox column on screwdrivers, maker “Funky Space Cowboy” sent this picture and explanation of his “split nut driver:”
My favorite driver is one I made from scratch. It’s a sawmaker’s split nut driver, used in making traditional Western style hand saws.
I’ve made several of these over the years but this one is my favorite and it was gift for a friend a very talented saw maker in Stuttgart. The handle is East Indian rosewood I turned on my mini lathe, the ferrule is a 1/2″ copper pipe end cap from the hardware store that I polished and the bit itself I ground down to the correct profile from an old 1/2″ spade bit. The ‘2’ on the blade is the bottom half the 1/2 mark ;-)
Awesome job! Love the end-cap ferrule. Clever.
2 thoughts on “Homemade split nut driver”
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I have had to make several split drivers over the years. I made a 2″ wide one with scrap PCB material to unscrew an objective lens from a stereo microscope, made a slot in a nut driver for a really weird recessed nut, and made one just last month out of an old screw driver to open a case that had a so-called security screw.
It is always way cheaper to make one out of scrap materials or old chewed up drivers than actually buying the tool. The microscope one was about $100 from the manufacturer.