Which tools?

[tody Brock]

I am going to upgrade my roughing gouge and was wondering on what you guys thought. I am looking to get a 3/4 roughing gouge and wanted to know what you think about the Easy carbide tools. Went to the woodworking show in Atlanta this weekend and they were using them to turn pens and they looked like they did a fantastic job. Would you go with this or a Sorby or CrownPM. If you want a traditional roughing gouge, which do you use or would you buy again. Keep in mind, most of my "turnings" are pens, bottle stoppers and other small things.

[Al Wasser]

I've got a 1" spindle roughing gouge from Penn State (Benjamins Best) and it sure does the job for me - both large and small -- I suppose others will chime in

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Make your own easy rougher. I did, cost about 10 bucks. The carbide cutter is the hardest thing to find.

I use my bowl gouge to rough. Learned that from Bill's DVD. Hardly ever use my Harbor Frieght rougher anymore, which is the reason I bought the HF set. WHich is what I would reccomend, if you don't already have a set of cheapo tools that are really pretty good. IMO the 1" rougher alone is worth the price of the set. 40 bucks shipped to your door.

Just my $.02.

[Jake Helmboldt]

I'm with Kyle. For your needs the easy rougher seems like expensive overkill. I plan to make my own as Kyle did for roughing some of those big jobs, but for spindle work a cheap spindle roughing gouge is more than adequate IMHO. I got a BB toolset with a 3/4 (I think) SRG and you can make quick work of small or big spindle blanks.

That's my $.02 (for what it is worth)

[David E Keller]

I've got a 1" Woodcraft store brand roughing gouge, and it works fine. I don't know that I would drop a ton of money on a roughing gouge, but there are those who do. I'd happily buy the same one again. The only thing I may change is the handle at some point... it's pretty light weight and could be a few inches longer.

[Hilel Salomon]

I think that any answer depends on what you want to do w/your tool. Are you looking to rough out spindles or bowls? Do you have a good bandsaw?
If it's spindles, then a relatively inexpensive roughing gouge should do the trick. If you're trying to rough out bowl blanks that are really out of round, then the easy rougher is fantastic. I have heavy duty large bowl gouges that can do a great job with blanks, but my easy rougher is wonderful when I can't get anything onto my bandsaw and the wood is very uneven and dry.
A great deal depends on how you mount your piece. If it's on a faceplate, you certainly can use a good bowl gouge.
Answer is: It depends....
good luck,
Hilel.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I use a 3/4" and 1 1/4" roughing gouges.

[Mike Peace]

Tody, what kind of roughing gouge do you have now?

I do a lot of small spindle work and use a Pinnacle - 1 1/4" deep fluted spindle Roughing Gouge and a HF 1". I am with the others, the carbide may be overkill for small spindle work.

I was at the show also. Did some booth duty in the Woodturning Club booth Saturday.

[Montgomery Scott]

I have the Ci1 easy rougher and it makes fast work of roughing, but I still use other tools depending on what I want done. For spindle work I usually use my Sorby 1-1/4" rougher, but I also have a few German style spindle gouges, large and small fingernail grind gouges and skews.

For bowls I may start with the Ci1 but for a better finish I use the P&N 3/8" or 1/2" bowl gouges or a round nose scraper if I need to touch up a profile.