Experimenting with tool grinds....

[Reed Gray]

Curiosity can be expensive, and I may have to get some new tools.

We all know that a high shear angle, bevel rubbing cut leaves the cleanest surface. For me that is with bowls. There are two ways to do this on bowls. One is to drop the gouge handle, and roll the flutes over a bit till you cut. The other for turners like me who hold their handles level is to have a tool with more of a ) nose profile, and roll the flutes over. Ones that do this best are a continental spindle gouge, Doug Thompson's fluteless gouges, and U or C shaped flute bowl gouges. V shaped flutes don't do this well because there is so little area on the nose to cut with. So, I was looking at a spindle/detail type gouge I have had for a long time, and never use, and thought, what the heck, it looks like a thick continental style gouge. I took it to the grinder, changed the nose profile from V to ), put a 60 degree bevel on it, and relieved the heel of the bevel, put it on the inside of the bowl, rubbed the bevel, and Eureka!!! I found it. Works great. Dropping the handle on the inside of the bowl is much more difficult than doing it on the outside, because of tool rests, bowl rims, and the ways on the lathe.

I really need to learn to take and post pictures.

robo hippy

[Marty Eargle]

Why take photos when you can make videos?! ;)

New grinds always intrigue me, and I have yet to drop the big bucks on high end gouges, so now is certainly the time for experimenting.

[Scott Hackler]

What a tease!

[Alan Trout]

Reed,

I agree on the picture posting. I would love to see your grind.

Alan

[Josh Bowman]

Reed, take pictures and email them to me and I'll post them for you. I'd really like to see the grind, since I've been experimenting myself and think you have put into words the direction I was going!
jsbowman6@gmail.com

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Timely post, Reed. I was going to ask you how you sharpen your Doug flute-less gouge and how steep a grind you use. I've never seen the tool in use. However, I am fortunate to own a Glaser bottoming gouge. I suppose I would call the shape a C, not a U. The tool shaft is very thick at a solid 3/4" but much is ground away to make the C shape. In fact, the thickness of the metal at the cutting edge is surprisingly thin but that also means there is no heel to drag behind. I keep it ground steep so I can ride the bevel from the transition all the way through the bottom center.

[Roger Chandler]

I really need to learn to take and post pictures.

robo hippy

Yes you do, Reed....:p;):D......that grind sounds very promising............I for one would like to have a peek at it.......I'm sure others as well! :)

[Reed Gray]

I may have to get my 16 year old daughter to take pics for me. My cell phone has no internet connection. I went to Doug's web site, and can't find pics of his fluteless gouge, but the spindle gouge has the same nose profile and bevel angles. So, nose profile is ), or almost no point, and very little sweep. Bevel angle is around 60 degrees with the bevel heel relieved (I don't consider it a secondary bevel because I round it over and don't use it for any rubbing). I will have them in San Jose.

I do plan to do a short video on the fluteless gouge. It has been around for a while, and is half round bar stock. There is another version by Dave Hout (spell?) which he called a bowl skew. I have found it to have a lot of uses.

robo hippy

[Reed Gray]

I did find this on the internet:

http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=packard&Category_Code=tools-crn-hout

Gives the general idea: a shallow flute, and blunt nose angle. It looks like it is cut from square stock and not round.

Oh yea, I platform sharpen everything, so for the fluteless gouge, I just set the platform angle, keeping the flat side up, and sweep it back and forth, I guess very similar to a skew that has a curved edge rather than straight. It can tip a tiny bit, but is no problem to keep close enough.

robo hippy

[Bill Hensley]

I thought I was with you until "keeping the flat side up" then you lost me.

Wouldn't you instead keep the flat side down on the platform?

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Thanks Reed,
I can see it in my minds eye. Never having seen the tool, your description as being half round bar stock makes it clear. You are basically sharpening it like a scraper then cutting away the heel.
faust

[Reed Gray]

If the moderators don't mind, this is a link to another forum that shows some pictures of Doug's Fluteless gouge.

(http://www.woodturnersresource.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1333637207)http://www. woodturnersresource.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1333637207

Bill, the flat side is the cutting side. In order to get a 60 degree bevel, if you had the flat side down, your platform would have to be at -30 degrees.

Faust,
Yes, it is sharpened like a scraper, but it isn't a scraper. The round bottom would make it want to roll to the sides. I do use the burr for shear pull type cuts to clean up tool marks, but most of the time, a bevel rubbing push cut, using the bottom 1/3 of the cutting edge, just like a skew. Probably why the name 'bowl skew' was used.

robo hippy

[John Keeton]

Reed, I disabled the link by placing spaces after the www. Folks will need to copy and paste this into their browser, and then remove the spaces to close up the link. However, those pics will only show for registered users of that forum, unfortunately. I was going to copy and paste them here, but was unable to view them.

Thanks!

[Reed Gray]

Thanks John, I didn't know proper procedure for this. I did send Doug a link to this thread. Hey Doug, you need some pics up.

robo hippy

[Grant Wilkinson]

Here are the pics.

[Reed Gray]

Thanks Grant!

robo hippy

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Reed,
Thanks for the picture and the explanation.
faust