Practicing Beads & Coves

[Mike Goetzke]

I've been practicing beads & coves. Yes, practice is really helping me but have a few questions:

1) I'm somewhat ambidextrous. On a bead I find it feels very natural with my left hand on the rest and my right on the tool handle to cut the bead from center to the left but award to cut from center to the right. So I tried turning my body and switching hands and seems I can cut the center to right much better. Is it OK to switch hands like this or should I practice more to get better cutting the bead all from one position?

2) When you are cutting these profiles do you look right at the cutting edge of the tool or at the top of the piece where you can see the profile silhouette.

Thanks

[Robert Henrickson]

Do what works best for YOU. Learning to do things from either side -- ambidextrous -- will make some situations easier to deal with, such as near the headstock. I've tried to learn bowl and spindle gouges with both hands -- it really helps sometimes. I'm naturally right-handed, but I try to work on my left when the situation suggests it. I'm now trying, finally, to get used to skews and am consciously taking both approaches.

[Thom Sturgill]

+1 on Roberts Comment
I'm naturally ambidextrous and so was my dad. I can remember deciding to write left handed (I was angry at my teacher) but am slightly right eye dominant and shoot right handed. I use both hands to turn beads and get a much better bead that way. As to whether to watch the cut or the rim - to me that depends on the size. Turning miniatures there is no room for wiggle and I watch the blade. Otherwise, I try to always watch the edge. Remember to keep the RPMs up with spindles.

[Michael Mills]

This may be wrong but it seems to hold true. I learned it from a Dave Holt video. This is for a bead, same principle holds for a cove with the spindle gouge.


Don't think about it and grap a skew naturally in your right hand. If you extend your trigger finger where does it point? I'm guessing it is about 3:00 or along the edge of the tool (for many/most people it would be about1:30). Very easy to roll 90* to the left, almost impossible to roll to the right. Try moving your finger to the flat (12:00 top) for a right side bead, you should be able to turn your wrist a full 90*with no effort.
With the left hand on the tool it would be reversed. A roll to the right would start at 9:00 and a roll to the left would now start at 12:00.


He also suggested practicing with both hands. Using only the right hand most people have to lean their body out of the way to make the left side cut. This results in the left side of the bead is flatter because your body is in the way of a fluid tool handle movement.

Hope I didn't get may left/rights mixed up.:)