Favorite gouge nose profile

[Reed Gray]

Well, I was thinking about the favorite gouge, which seemed to pertain more to flute design. That got me to thinking about the nose profile, and which ones do you prefer. I never use a swept back any more. For most cutting, I prefer a 45/45 on the Thompson V, and more of a ) on the U. Some like wings straight (Batty grind), but I end up with a slight arc. My bottom feeders all have a tiny bit of sweep.

What are your favorites?

robo hippy

[robert baccus]

I am not prepared to suggest that I have any toolbuying resistance--way too many. My favorite profile is a standard 45 deg fingernail on the right wing and a 45 deg square nose on the left. Different yeah but you should see the curls when sweeping across with the square nose to the left. I also have all the gouge sizes with bilateral tips for when I need them. I do mostly vases and this combination works very well on the long pieces. A 1" roughing gouge with a 70 deg.(only) bevel does very well on long grain pieces also when hogging wood off.

[Guy Belleman]

Tried a few, but prefer the Ellsworth type grind with the Wolverine jig on both the Thompson and Crown tools. Quick and easy, and back to turning.

[charlie knighton]

i use Kirk DeHeer's jigs, 50 on 1/2 hamlet, and 40 on Thompson shallow detail gouges

Kirk DeHeer is listed as a demostrator for Utah's Symposium, but they have not listed his topic or the other 80 demostrators.

[John Keeton]

Reed, I guess there are several components to this question. There is the angle of grind, the amount of "point" given the nose, and the somewhat related "sweep" of the wings. In addition, there is the arc, or lack thereof, given the wing grind. All very interesting stuff and I look forward to seeing all the responses.

Somewhere along the line, I started replicating the flute profile on the nose - making the nose, when viewed in silouhette, have the same contour as does the valley of the flute. That seems to work for me. I don't necessarily do that on all spindle gouges, though.

[Dennis Ford]

I sharpen on a platform and produce a grind that is similar to the Ellsworth grind but the wings are not swept back quite as much. My bottom feeders are swept back just a little bit.

[John Thorson]

Dennis, I use the same approach on both the main bowl gouges and on the bottom feeders. David Ellsworth does a lot of shear scraping and needs those longs wings. I push-cut whenever possible and seldom shear scrape or use a shearing pull cut using the wings only when roughing out. By not grinding the wings back so far it does affect the nose profile keeping it much as John describes above closely mirroring the shape of the bottom of the flute.

[Bill White]

Wish I could see some pics or drawings of the styles all in one place. There are so many styles and opinions.
Maybe be a nice video for Mr. Robo?
Bill

[Steve Rost]

I have started to follow Mr. Batty's teaching and have ground my 3/8 and 1/2 Thompson V gouges to a 40/40. Not straight but a slight curve. I have not turned enough to comment on the 40/40. I have a Ellsworth 5/8 and left it with the long grind, and a 5/8 Thompson V as it came from the factory, both close to 50 degree. They are for my roughing. I sharpen with the Wolverene system. The angle grind of the sweep of the wings as John mentioned is also a factor. I have not got that straight in my head yet.

[Lawrence Tarnoff]

Add one to the request for illustrations/video. I have exactly one bowl gouge with long swept back wings. As a relatively new turner, I'm finally making friends with it and getting more comfortable keeping it sharp. My biggest problem is the "transition" area between the inside sides of the bowl and the inside bottom. Would a gouge with a different profile be better here?

Larry

[Reed Gray]

Well, I do have a video clip that isn't up yet that shows some of these profiles. I will have to get that one up. One with scrapers as well. If you go to You Tube, and type in robo hippy, I show a couple of profiles, but don't go into detail on them.

The 40/40 profile, used by Stuart and a lot of the Brits comes from the beaver tooth, which is about 40 degrees. While I experiment a lot, I haven't noticed any real advantages, though many noted turners say it is better. You do have to do that sharpening on a platform, and it can not be done with a gouge jig. Main reason is that when you grind the wing, the jig does not allow you to roll over the proper way, or it doesn't roll over far enough, so the wing bevel isn't 40 degrees. If you don't roll it, the bevel angle can make the wing pretty thin (is that acute?), which isn't as strong.

robo hippy

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Would a gouge with a different profile be better here?
Lawrence,
A gouge sharpened differently will help. If you are making an open bowl, one whose rim is the major circumference, your normal grind may be suitable. If your bowl design has fairly straight up and down walls or especially in the case of a closed rim bowl like a calabash, it is almost impossible to "ride the bevel" through the transition area because the rim of the bowl gets in the way. That's when the 45 degree grind won't work. We discussed this in another thread earlier in the week. New turners try to get as much out of a chunk of wood as possible so they make fairly vertical walls then end up with a corner at the bottom of the walls. Someone else referred to this shape as a dog's dish and did not attempt to insult, merely to be descriptive. The problem is, it is a really difficult shape to make. A ride rim bowl with a shallow taper to the center of the bottom is much easier and can easily be accomplished with one tool. If you want to make slightly closed bowls, you will need to grind a gouge to 75 degrees or so and sweep back the wings only a tiny bit to keep them from catching if you get the tool out of position. That grind is done by hand.
I like gouges with parabolic flutes but I use at least two grinds on the inside of a bowl. I use the normal Ellsworth grind and I have a gouge ground for the transition and the bottom.
faust

[Thom Sturgill]

Just got home from the Florida Symposium where Ashley Harwood, Stuart Batty's 'apprentice', gave demos. She said what I have been saying all along. There are THREE flute shapes - U, V, and PARABOLIC. Both Ellsworth and Batty are saying that you need parabolic flutes to get their grind and that you can not do it with a wolverine jig. Both grinds create a thinner wing than the straight wolverine jig which rolls around a single point. Don Gieger has a modification to the wolverine arm that raises the platform and gives the Ellsworth grind. CSUSA sells a set of profile examples made by Henry Taylor:
281459
these are great examples to use as a reference until you learn what you want and how to make it.

[Steve Rost]

Which brands of gouges offer a parabolic flute?

[Thom Sturgill]

Which brands of gouges offer a parabolic flute?

Check out this (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?205521-bowl-gouges-with-true-parabolic-flutes) thread.

[John Thorson]

It is worth buying one of the Glenn Lucas bowl gouges from CS just to get Glenn's very well done sharpening guide. He covers all of the popular grinding jig systems helping you get as good a profile and wing as possible with a jig on a masterflute style gouge (parabolic).

[Reed Gray]

John brings up an interesting point about the nose profile having to match the flute design. I have seen a lot of variation, more so from newbies. You can't make a round nose gouge out of a steep V gouge, and you can't make a pointy nose gouge out of a U shaped flute. This is where you turn the gouge upside down and shape the wing (straight or arced), then sharpen the nose and wings to match the inside flute shape. Lots of video clips showing this.

robo hippy

[Brian Kent]

Do you ever use a bowl gouge for hollow forms? This has been an arena for catches for me.

[Reed Gray]

I have watched people hollow out some of the dead center of hollow forms, just like they hollow out boxes with a gouge, but "kind of like the jitterbug, it plum evaded me". If you have ever watched Roy Underhill on PBS (the guy that does everything with old hand tools), he uses 'spoon' drill bits that look like some gouge flute designs. I can some times plunge in with some of my gouges, but standard drill bits work easier for me.

robo hippy