Turning chisel advice

[paulstenlund]

I have $140 in gift cards from santa. I was thinking of cashing them in and buying a couple of quality chisels. Rowley writes he uses his 3/8 gouge most of the time and and the other "R" (rankin?) uses the skew most of the time. Any and all suggestions/comments would be appreciated (brands, ie: Benjamins Best, shapes, spindlemaster clone etc) I have several my son gave me that were ground from old Pacific Northwest lumber mill's planer blades, I think these could be reshaped, very good steel.

I realize this is kinda an open ended question but any advice would be a big help

Paul

[final_t]

I think you'll find that you will use both the gouge and the skew. Some observations:

A gouge is a bear to resharpen correctly, unless you have a fairly expensive jig, or make one yourself.

A skew can get away from you really fast and tear off into the work. Takes a lot of practice to figure it out, and you'll be much better off with a round-body one than a square body one. It's much easier to sharpen.

You might want to list what you currently have in terms of tools (made from planer blades = scraper maybe?) , and in terms of what your skill set is. I'm going to assume that you have a midi lathe and a grinder.

[DonHo]

I think it would depend a lot on what projects you are going to turn. If you are going to turn bowls, you will want at least one bowl gouge and a heavy round end or radiused end scraper. For boxes the same type of scraper would be handy as well as a square end scraper. If you are going to be hollowing end grain(boxes, goblets, etc) you might find a "termite" tool or some other kind of ring tool helpful. Another thing to consider is how experienced you are, if you turn for very long you will use a skew on a lot of different projects and it's a very useful tool but a little hard to learn to use so you might want to try a "spindlemaster" type of tool. They are much easier to use and sharpen but don't produce quite as smooth a cut. As for brands, I have mostly used tools from HF(dark handles) and the Benjamin's Best from PSI. I've had no problems with any of these tools but I don't think they would be considered "better" quality by most people. I think most people consider Crown , Taylor or Sorby to be top quality but the cost is a lot more. You might consider the Artisan tool line from CraftSupplies USA. I haven't used them but they are made by Taylor for CraftSupplies and are cheaper so they might be a good buy.
Link to CraftSupplies tools
http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/catalog/tools.html

Good Luck,
DonHo

[bigsteel15]

This one was recommended to me by a local pro as the tool he uses for 90% of his turning. The Fingernail profile works great for everything I've managed so far. The only catch of course is you should then have a special sharpening jig. I bought the Sorby and love it.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...330,49233&ap=1

[paulstenlund]

good stuff so far

Final T
My skill set would best be described as minimal and yes the skew can sure get away from you, my planing cuts require extensive sanding

Don Ho
Those look pretty good gor the price, thanks for the info

The planer blade units are pretty much all scapers, one I have good luck with in bowls is shaped like this
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Not to cool a graphics but you get the idea

Paul

[final_t]

From the ascii art, it looks like you have it configured as a hook scraper - so you use it on the rounded side? I'd think that work fine for bowls and such.

As for the skew, I've found that grinding a radius on the front so that it's not flat, more of a sweeping curve, does wonders. Keeps the edges from catching and solved a lot of the "ridges" that you're probably sanding out.

Woodcraft is probably going to have a 15% off bag sale soon in your area, since it's getting time towards the woodworking shows.

Hartville tools also is having a sale either in Feb or March on turning tools, so you can mail order them. FWIW, I have both Sorby and Pinnacle and they both work nice. I personally don't care for the Crown set that I bought.

Final T
My skill set would best be described as minimal and yes the skew can sure get away from you, my planing cuts require extensive sanding

Don Ho
Those look pretty good gor the price, thanks for the info

The planer blade units are pretty much all scapers, one I have good luck with in bowls is shaped like this
__
( |
| |
| |
| |
Not to cool a graphics but you get the idea

Paul

[DeanKC]

Doin' the math

Paul,

Good questions!!

I've got to make a copy of this sermon sometime. It's really pretty basic. You need to do some simple math and look at the big picture, buying tools for the LONG HAUL.

One example: You'll often find various M2 tools at different prices and wonder what the difference is. Are the flutes the same length? Are they both machined out of a rod or were they forged from flat steel?

Many of the less expensive tools (Benjamin's Best and Windsor Design--which I think are the same tools sold by different companies) are often made with reasonably good steel, but have little dinky chunks of metal. Like half that of a Sorby tool. Sure, it's half the money, because it's less than half the tool! If you use a jig for sharpening, you may not even be able to sharpen some of the cheaper tools because they won't stick out of the jig far enough!! I'd recommend that you not go there! 8^)

If you go to Craft Supply's website, they have some great explanations about the basic expectations of tool steel. Regular carbon steel (CS--really cheap tools are still made of this) lasts for a little while before needing to be resharpened. The edge on tools of High Speed Steel (HSS) will last six times longer than edges on CS tools. And you can't kill the temper on a HSS tool! Blue don't matter. BIG advangate.

Then, if you go to what Craft Supply calls ASP, the edges on those tools will last about 3-4.5 times longer than M2. And the new cryogenically treated HSS tools are said to last 3-6 times longer than plain M2 edges.

If the tools are the same length then, let's do some math. All figured on a 3/8" bowl gouge, hopefully figured on flute length alone, using their wear figures as "gospel". Figuring CSteel as a factor of 1, M2, as a factor of 6, ASP as a factor of 27, and the cryo tools as a factor of 36 (M2 being 2x Csteel, ASP being 4.5x M2, and cryo being 6x M2).

Raw figures:

CSteel, 5", $30, or $6/inch
M2, 6", $52, or $8.67/inch
ASP, 6", $68, or $11.33/inch
cryo, 6", $70, or $11.67/inch

Factored for wear:

CSteel = $6 per wear inch ($6/factor of 1)
M2 = $1.45 per wear inch ($8.67/factor of 6)
ASP = $.42 per wear inch ($11.33/factor of 27)
Cryo = $.33 per wear inch ($11.67/factor of 36)

That shows me that the ASP and Cryo tools are an overwhelming deal when considered for the long haul.

Does that help any??