John Keeton
03-01-2010, 9:13 PM
I had posted a previous thread on the Cindy Drozda vortex tool, and several creekers posted suggestions.
Jeff Nicol and I exchanged some thoughts on the correct grind, and Jeff was kind enough to ship me a piece of O1 rod to play with. Thanks Jeff!!!
But, it needed to be heat treated and I needed to make a handle for it before I could do with much with it.
From the Drozda DVD I captured some screen images -
143728143729143730
She uses 1/4", and it is ground to a 25* working bevel, with the heel ground away leaving about 1/16" of working bevel.
In the process of cleaning up from my last bowl project, and in putting my tools back in the rack, a couple of Benjamin Best gouges suddenly caught my eye. Early on, I had purchased 1/4" and 3/8" spindle gouges. Since getting the Thompson detail gouge, I had never used the BB gouges. They are handled, HSS so no heat treating required!! The light came on!!
So, I grabbed them and spent 5 minutes regrinding them, and here is what I ended up with -
143732 143731
The Drozda vortex has a sharp point, but I thought having less of a point might be less likely to catch. There was a piece of walnut waste in the chuck, so I quickly tried them out. They work fantastic and easily make extremely fine cuts like those used by Drozda on the tips of her finials!!
I need to clean up the grinding a bit, but I am very pleased with these and look forward to trying them on the next finial.
Thought this might be an idea for others that have some unused gouges lying around.
Jeff Nicol and I exchanged some thoughts on the correct grind, and Jeff was kind enough to ship me a piece of O1 rod to play with. Thanks Jeff!!!
But, it needed to be heat treated and I needed to make a handle for it before I could do with much with it.
From the Drozda DVD I captured some screen images -
143728143729143730
She uses 1/4", and it is ground to a 25* working bevel, with the heel ground away leaving about 1/16" of working bevel.
In the process of cleaning up from my last bowl project, and in putting my tools back in the rack, a couple of Benjamin Best gouges suddenly caught my eye. Early on, I had purchased 1/4" and 3/8" spindle gouges. Since getting the Thompson detail gouge, I had never used the BB gouges. They are handled, HSS so no heat treating required!! The light came on!!
So, I grabbed them and spent 5 minutes regrinding them, and here is what I ended up with -
143732 143731
The Drozda vortex has a sharp point, but I thought having less of a point might be less likely to catch. There was a piece of walnut waste in the chuck, so I quickly tried them out. They work fantastic and easily make extremely fine cuts like those used by Drozda on the tips of her finials!!
I need to clean up the grinding a bit, but I am very pleased with these and look forward to trying them on the next finial.
Thought this might be an idea for others that have some unused gouges lying around.