If you only had one grind, what would it be?

[Bill Wyko]

Many of us have an arsenal of tools. For those that are just getting started or anyone that uses one tool more than anything else, what gring profile would you say is #1 for you guys? I use an Elsworth grind many times from beginning to end. It's my go to profile, what's yours?

[Alan Trout]

Bill,

I am much like you I really like the Elsworth profile. It does everything well. But I have a conventional ground bowl gouge that I find myself using more and more on the exterior of piece and for finish cuts at the interior of bowls. I also have some gouges ground at 40 degrees which has its advantages as well.

Alan

[Jim Burr]

Having visited this lately, I have to go with 1) for shallow bowl stuff, a fingernail grind. It's able to swoop and platter cut like nothing else! But for old style bowls, deep cut for stuff like a pottery bowl for soup...Elsworth hands down. I use a Sorby bowl gouge I keep with that grind. My DT's maintain the fingernail swoop. As I get more into bowls...I don't see this changing much, but you never know! +1 with Alan...a fingernail grind on the outside is great.

[David E Keller]

Other than hollowing, I probably do 80% of my turning with a 1/2 long grind bowl gouge, and most of the rest is done with a 3/8 detail gouge.

[Steve Schlumpf]

For lack of a better description, I guess I would call mine a Grumbine grind because the first time I ever saw anything like it was in his first video!

[Bill Wyko]

I find that deep in a vessel I'll use an oval bowl gouge but as i come up the walls I'll switch to the Elsworth. I also find myself using a hook scraper too.

[Dale Bright]

If I only had 1 bowl gouge grind, it would be a Stuart Batty 40° grind.

Dale

[Kyle Iwamoto]

All of my gouges have the same grind. 3/8 to 5/8". It happens to be the same angle that Dougs tools come with, which surprised me. For that ever so hard transition from side to bottom, I still have to resort to the *sigh* scraper. Maybe if I grind a gouge to a "better" angle, I could use it to do that transition.

[Dale Miner]

1/2" slight fingernail spindle gouge

You did not specify bowls only.

[Reed Gray]

I would have a 60 degree bevel at least for going through the transition on the inside of the bowl. I don't use the swept back design at all any more. Main advantage to it that I can see is more steel to put in the wood if you are using it to rough out, and more steel for dropped handle shear cuts. I use scrapers for both of those actions.

robo hippy

[Rob Cunningham]

I use the Ellsworth grind for the majority of my bowl work and outside of hollow forms.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

I assume that I am in a small minority; my most used tool is a ½” bowl gouge with a convex grind that I learned from JoHannes Michelsen (the hat guy). Grinding an edge on a wheel with a jig creates a concave grind. A convex grind requires “hand grinding” without a jig and that takes a little practice, but I’m happier with the tool’s performance. It’s a slightly different approach to removing wood. With a typical concave grind, in order to “rub the bevel” you have to make contact with the heel of the gouge (usually at least a ¼” or more from the cutting edge). With a convex grind, you still have an opportunity to “rub the bevel”, but the bevel is immediately behind the cutting edge. It might seem a little strange at first, but with just a little practice, you might discover that you like it. I think I have more control and there’s much less bruising of the wood fibers. For what it’s worth.

[Dennis Ford]

If I had to have only one, it would be an Ellsworth style grind @ ~45 deg but since we are talking about recommendations for beginners; the same style grind @ 60 deg would be my choice.