Heat, more heat, mega red hot, big wrench..... not gonna work. Guy from Johannesburg wins the $200 and gets to pass Go. I cut that brass part in half today. No stud inside. Then I cut it off flush where it met the portafilter head. The whole thing is a one piece casting with the portafilter head being chromed. At least now I know. I'll have someone tap them with a 12 x 1.75 tap and then get my friend to turn the wood handles for me. Thanks for all the help so far with this problem.

Does anyone know (Dave?) how the studs are set into the wood handle? Do you just drill a hole and whack or thread the stud into the wood handle?

Glad you got that off in the end. Buy yourself a coffee on me...

Now the next trick is to align the hole correctly - that is not going to be fun, a skew handle will not look good, and you do not have much reference material to work off of - next time you do this, drill the hole deeper before cutting, as the existing hole will be easy to use with a drill for alignment.

From the pictures I have seen of Daves (cannonfodder) handles it looks to me like he drills and taps the wooden handle and screws in a piece of threaded rod, and then cuts it to length - guess some epoxy might be a good idea too on that side - try epidermix 372 - it will definitely hold wood to metal.

You center drill the wood, tap and epoxy in a threaded rod about 2.5 inches deep. Then you need a Jacobs chuck for the drive end of the lathe or a nova chuck with finger jaws. I had to modify one to make it work. You chuck the stud in the lathe and turn.

Dave

Are you putting a nut on the stud before putting it in the chuck and are you using the stud side as the drive end?

Feel free to decline to answer if you think its something you would rather not publish - its a long long time since I turned anything in wood - nearly 30 years - brings back memories indeed, and I am more curious than planning to do this.

Nothing special. No nut, the stud bottoms out against the back of the chuck and tighten it up with the key. Then spin away and let the sawdust fly. You will want a live centre on it for support or you could bend the stud while turning.