Penturning technique?

[mudder]

I'm turning about 50 pens as christmas gifts and as usual I got started much too late. I figured tonight would be a marathon turning session as I had finally got all the blanks drilled and glued over the past 4 days.
I decided to try the Richard Raffan famed rapid peel technique to see if I could turn a little faster. Net result? I get to go to bed at a reasonable time as I was able to go from 3/4" square blanks to ready for sanding in about 2 minutes per set! A little over three hours and all the sets are roughed and 6 sets are finished waiting to be assembled. I figure that I can sand and finish about 10 sets a night next week if need be and I'll get some shop time squeezed in this weekend so I think I'm not in too much trouble. If I narrow down mw list a little and pick up little odds and ends for some of the people on the list I might even finish by Tuesay night.

If you want some excitement, try the "rapid peel" technique. The shavings look like you used a pencil sharpener on them.


Mudder

[Ken Massingale]

mudder,
can you elaborate a bit on this, or point me in a direction to look? Google insist rapid peel is something to do with microdermabrasion. somehow, I don't think that is what you did.
thanks,
ken

[kwgeorge]

The cut Scott is talking about is made with the Skew horizontal to the work piece. Pretty much as you would use it as a scraper. The cutting edge is raised high on the work piece (above center line) and you raise the rear of the handle and lower the cutting edge into the work piece. Alan Lacer refers to is as “Pealing an Apple” or “Cutting veneer from a log”. It is very fast and will remove wood very aggressively. It works very well on most woods but you can run into a bit of trouble with the harder denser woods as I have hit a micro crack and split a piece in half. I have never tried it with a strait Skew or have ever seen anyone use a strait Skew to perform this cut. Both Richard and Alan use curved Skews.

It is fun to watch the wood shavings fly though!

Here is a link that describes the different Skew cuts;


http://www.alanlacer.com/handouts/ho-skew_chisels.html

[mudder]

quote:Originally posted by kwgeorge

The cut Scott is talking about is made with the Skew horizontal to the work piece. Pretty much as you would use it as a scraper. The cutting edge is raised high on the work piece (above center line) and you raise the rear of the handle and lower the cutting edge into the work piece. Alan Lacer refers to is as “Pealing an Apple” or “Cutting veneer from a log”. It is very fast and will remove wood very aggressively. It works very well on most woods but you can run into a bit of trouble with the harder denser woods as I have hit a micro crack and split a piece in half. I have never tried it with a strait Skew or have ever seen anyone use a strait Skew to perform this cut. Both Richard and Alan use curved Skews.

It is fun to watch the wood shavings fly though!

Here is a link that describes the different Skew cuts;


http://www.alanlacer.com/handouts/ho-skew_chisels.html

Ken explained it so well.

I used the Ellsworth 3/4" raius skew to do the cutting and I have modified almost all of my skews to this shape. The actual technique is shown in the video's Turning Wood By Richard Raffan and Turning projects By Richard Raffan. Both are good video's and I highly recommend them. They are also avaliable on DVD for the same price.
You need to be sure your shew is really, really sharp and have at it.
I have not had any problems last night and I did nearly 50 sets of blanks but I can see if there is a split somewhere you could blow tha blank. Oh yea, my DVR was set to 2450rpm as a turning speed.

Mudder