Hello All. I recently attended a Smith & Wesson Revolver armorer school. We bought a toolkit but they were out of Yoke facing reamers/cutters. Does anyone have an extra they would like to sell or know a source for one. The photo is an example of one. I would like to find one with a 38/35 pilot.





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If you are a reloader you could use your case trimmer and save some bucks. A member here gave me the idea and it works great. I went one step further and made a pilot for it that fits the inner diameter of the yoke barrel. I think some of the existing case trimmer pilots would also work.

Try Brownells or Midway for those items. I purchased mine years ago from Brownells and still going strong.

Nick

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NRA Instructor\GCA Gunsmith

Try a counter bore for socket head cap screws.

I use the cutter that is for trimming the barrel extension to get B/C gap. That and a piece off brass turned to slip inside the yoke tube and drilled so I can screw it to center of cutter. Then turn cutter with a screw driver.

I also have brass sleeves that slide on the rods that cutters use. 0ne each for 32, 38, 44 and 45 barrels so cutter stays centered while trimming barrel extensions. Never worked on a 41 yet, but have lots of brass round stock.LOL

I have a small dresser that is full of S&W tools, many of them homemade.

Thanks everyone. I am familiar with the current yoke face cutter Power Custom makes. It also requires the above Yoke alignment sleeve tool. I was just hoping someone had a place I could but the old one piece cutter.


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I know this is an old thread, but the lack of a commercially produced facing tool is a continuing problem that I finally solved for myself today.
I could have made a mandrel and used a brownells barrel facing cutter mentioned above but I wanted a non-handheld solution as I do not like the results I get from the brownells cutter when facing barrels installed in a frame.

I ground a mandrel that slips into the yoke and allows me to mount the mandrel and yoke in a piece of aluminum in my milling machine vise that allows me to hold the crane pointing up.


I ground a 0.310" floating reamer pilot (as used for rifle barrel chambering reamers) and used it on one of these 0.705" breech counterbore that I already have:


This allows me to setup a yoke in the mill and use my micrometer quill stop to set the length.


This gives me better results that a handheld facing cutter.

When I am done with the job, I use the mandrel to hold the bushing on the block.

The thumbscrew on the left holds the mandrel in the block.
The dowel pin on the right keeps the yoke from rotating while you are facing it.

I saw it mentioned somewhere that someone made a yoke mandrel to put into a wilson case trimmer.
That should also work great as well since you can precisely set the stop length.

I have one of the Power Custom tools that was purchased back in the the day. Since these fancy PC cutters have become very expensive and sometimes unavailable, I've been using these Lee case cutters and making mandrels for them for years for this single purpose.

The cutter has an internal threaded cavity for the mandrel. A suitable mandrel can be made out of steel, aluminum or hardwood dowel. (.310") Thread size in the cutter is 10x24.

The mandrel keeps the tool in proper alignment with the yoke face while turning the tool by hand. Mandrels can be made for J-frame yokes as well. (.225")

If you would rather not spend over $100 for a small tool that you may only use once, this is a cost effective alternative.

Cost: less than $10 (available at Midway for $6.99)













Carter

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Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer