Park facing tool guides on VAR handles?

Hey all,

Trying to get all the stuff together to tap/face T47 shells and hitting a snag. Seems that VAR sells T47 taps, but doesn’t yet sell guides for their facing tool, which I already own. Park sells a T47 guide for theirs but I’m not sure if the thru hole/tool interface is the same:

Anyone know if these are cross-compatible, or does anyone have a set of Park guides for a BB (shouldn’t matter if it’s English or T47) and could measure the thru-hole and key interface so I can compare to my setup?

Thanks!

I believe VAR is bigger shank than Park and they are not compatible.

I was worried that’d be the case.

Related question- if I make some for the VAR tool, is anyone interested in a set? :slight_smile:

All- Well, looks like they JUST released it!:

Part number CD-38347, looks to only be available as a kit with the cutter.

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Does the VAR tool not let you use the cutters as a guide while facing or are they fixed to only rotate as one piece?

Older VAR stuff all uses a bearing as the driver so it’s like a round sunken hole in the cutters that is not cross-compatible with anything else. Maybe the newer stuff is different as that looks like it has a channel in it.

Cyclus stuff uses a channel driver, and park tool uses a pin driver (yay bike industry proprietary).

My bb setup is an old VAR handle from probably 80s/90s, but I managed to get a newer T47 Cyclus facer to work by rounding out one of the channels with a grinding stone. It looks a bit jank, but seats and works just fine. The rest of the spacers/bits to fit up to the handle I turned on the lathe.