Turning epoxy

[Bill Dempsey]

I’ve repaired a bark inclusion in a peppermill head usung crushed decorative stone mixed into epoxy. It now appeard hss tools are not up to the turning task. Must i use carbide?

[Jim Morgan]

Crushed stone is so abrasive that it is used as, well, abrasives of a variety of sorts. Most resins respond well to negative rake tools; with the stone, you will have better luck with carbide.

[Mark Wedel]

I have used epoxy with mica coloring agents, and while harder than the wood, HSS tools can deal with those just fine. So if one was going to do this a lot, you could make the choice to use epoxy with such a color agent so that normal tools would work.

[Brice Rogers]

I did some epoxy-stone work and found that I could get about 5 seconds of cutting before the bowl gouge was horribly dull. So, for the next 4 or 5 minutes, I left the grinder running....

I'd think that carbide would work better. If the epoxy/stone was proud of the surface, I might consider using a hand grinder to reduce the surface a bit. Hopefully, others with more experience will opine.

[Jim Tobias]

Carbide cutter with negative rake.
Also, if it is a natural stone inlay of some sort, ceramic sandpaper and/or diamond grit will save you a lot of time/heartache.
Jim

[Richard Coers]

You don't have much of a choice, do you? Your title should have been turning stone chips, resin is easy to turn.