Quick question

[Gene O. Carpenter]

A newbi here, I picked up a fairly new hardly used, if at all, Craftsman 15" made by Palmgren. No stand so I'm fabbing one together with angle iron and my Mig welder..
I'll have it going shortly, I hope! It came with a new set of Craftsman gouges but I also have an older set of Diston gouges.. My question is which would be the best to keep and use? The other will probably end up on the Bay! Thank you..
Gene

[Curt Fuller]

First, Welcome!

As for the gouges, I'd keep them all. I can just about guarantee that you'll find a use for them, even if it's just to practice shapening them.

[Charlie Adams]

Quick Question !!!!!
Quick Answer............... Keep them all.

Charlie

[Neal Addy]

Get rid of a tool??? What a novel idea! :D

[Richard Madison]

Assume you also bought it. Best to keep the tools and practice with each as your skills develop. Decide later which is/are expendable. Among my tools regularly used are Sorby, Ben's Best, several home made, and a couple that came with my original single tube Craftsman about 26 years ago.

[David Fried]

Lots of good advice!

You get rid of a square scraper by regrinding it into a radius scraper, side scraper, or .....

Lots of other duplicate tools can take on new, specialized roles.
If you can, keep them. You will use them somewhere, somehow!

[Paul Heely]

Keep them all. As other have said you can practice sharpening with them. You can also have one tool like a bowl gouge with different grinds, one long grind and one traditional. Even if you only have one grind that you use you can always have more than one sharpened and ready to go and not have to stop in the middle of turning to sharpen tools.

[Raymond Overman]

Along with the other advice on keeping the tools, which I agree with, you need to make sure your angle iron base is extremely sturdy and built with minimum vibration in mind. Make sure you have a place for ballast like sand bags and it will help.

Another thing to keep in mind is that turning tools are consumables. You'll be grinding away at them when you sharpen them. If you have a backup set you're ahead of the game when it comes time to replace them.

[Gordon Seto]

Gene,

I may take the other side. It depends on what your new Craftsman set is worth. I have seen some new old vintage Craftsman tools selling at above top dollars on the Bay. People are paying collector's price for them. If you can use the proceeds to get a better set, why stuck with the old? IMO, even the cheap HSS set from HF is better than the old CS tools. Less trips to the grinder; don't have to worry about over-heating during grinding.
Turners are buying new tools all the time. It is not that their old tool is too short needed to be replaced. It is because they want a new tool with different flute design and grind. I will bet a lot of Creekers has more than one skew; they bought them one by one, knowing full well that the next skew is going to have catches also.

Gordon

[Jim Becker]

And then there is the issue of what the tooling is made of. Many older tools are carbon steel, rather than HHS. Not a "problem" and you can, in fact, get a very keen edge on a carbon steel tool. But they are very, very, VERY susceptible to heat damage if you use a grinder to sharpen and at only a few hundred degrees F. HHS is the better choice in that respect as they are more forgiving relative to grinding heat and that's especially good for someone new to the task. Most folks early on cut too hard and fast on the grinder...

[Gene O. Carpenter]

Thanks for responding, all of you! I never gave the spare set a thought as at 71 years of age and just getting started with "turning" I don't have too much time left to learn this wood turning art nor to grind away such long blades but I am going to give it a try!
I will have to repair one of the Craftsman handles and try to find a couple ferrules, can't imagine where they might have gone!
The stand top rails are made from older bed rails, cut and welded along all 4 corners. This will have a top of 2 pieces of 3/4" MDF glued n screwed..The legs will be 1/4" thick 1-1/2"x 1-1/2" bolted to top frame with 1/8" gussets bolted to top frame and legs. Legs will be slightly splayed outward to increase footprint and add stability. There will be another frame/shelf about 10" off floor and will have a single thickness of 3/4" MDF. Gusseted also!
It's going to quite heavy in itself but just in case more weight is needed that bottom shelf will probably have a cabinet built in to store some of those other sanders, saw's etc, etc that I have a need for, the other's will be going on the Bay.
Now I have to look for a sharpening outfit!
Thanks again.....
Gene

Been a "Wood butcher" for 71 years!

[robert hainstock]

Gene,
While I match and love for woodworking I bought my set of eight Craftsman tools 45 years ago. While they mostly ly in the box on the shelf while I use others, I wouldn't think of getting rid of them.
MAKE CHIPS!;)

[Dean Thomas]

Thanks for responding, all of you! I never gave the spare set a thought as at 71 years of age and just getting started with "turning" I don't have too much time left to learn this wood turning art nor to grind away such long blades but I am going to give it a try!
Good attitude, sir! David F. & others told you well. You keep 'em all. It's a ROOOL! That rhymes with both drool and tool, mandatory things here in the Creek!

I even have some of the tools from the $8 sets that I bought 25 years ago when I thought I was buying bargains. The right word was really "junk" but I really had no clue. Those carbon steel tools are really not good for much, but when I need/want a special shape for a special cut, they are a great "no-guilt" way of achieving it. They shape quickly because of the type of steel they are, and so long as I quench regularly, it's fine. The scrapers have all been several shapes and configurations. One of the larger skews has been converted to a dedicated negative rake scraper. Smaller scraper is now a dovetail scraper for a friend so that he does not have to guess at the angle for his chuck grip. Those tools were only $1 each!!! and there is still plenty of metal even on those since they don't get used much.

I'm praying for MANY years of safe and prodigious chip-making turning for you, Gene. Spent the last couple of Saturdays with a guy about your age who just learned to turn pens two weeks ago! Been doing flat work for years and a little turning now and then as needed, but he's addicted and just ordered a BUNCH of pen-making stuff this past week. Says he's going to make a BUNCH of Freedom Pens this coming year! Go Team! :)

And best of luck with your Palmgren. Check your drive and tailstock points to make sure that it's running true, sir. It will save you much frustration if you know this early!

[Paul Engle]

Gene when ya getter done let us see some pic, and no at age 58 I learned not to sell nutin , especally sompthin nearly as old as i am ;). Those Distons are special ,some of the carpenter shops in the navy yards used em during WWll kinda like Oliver and DelaVal, when the only Chuck in the shop was a Jones who lived down the street .....:eek:. ;)

[Allen Neighbors]

Welcome to the Creek, Gene O. You're never too old to become an addict. I'm praying for many more years of fun for you, too.
If your centers are off a little, try a little shimming under a foot... a little shim goes a long way. :)

[Gene O. Carpenter]

While I've been a "Carpenter" all my life & have on occasion thrown together a custom bunk with a bed in it's own room, a couple sets of kitchen cabinets, gutted a bus & built a MH, gutted to bare outer walls & re-built the whole shack, my main interest outside of working as an appliance repairman for almost 40 years was engine mechanics & metal work turning brass cannon barrels on a 12"X 48" South Bend back geared thread cutting lathe. Still managed to raise 4 kids & Lord only knows how we're still living under the same roof. Maybe it's because of all my noisy toy's that are louder!;) Oh I forgot guns, antique gasoline engines & generators..I think the quietest piece of equip I own is my Miller 175 Mig Welder
I have managed to acquire a fairly large number of dedicated WW machinery for sawing, sanding, planing & now a turning machine. So with my previous MW turning, center alignment will be checked before I even test the motor.
Yesterday I went to HD & bought one of those Rigid Oscillating belt sanders for $199. I unpacked & assembled it before dinner & it appears to be a fairly well built piece for a budgeted WW! Will make some powder tomorrow!
Wish I'd had it a couple months ago when my daughter asked me to make her a counter top paper towel holder with a drawer, sanding those curves would have been SO much easier & it would have looked better too !

I have a 13" reversible feed thickness planer that I built from an old set of drawings. It's got wringer washing machine rollers & the reversing mech is the head from the same washing machine. Was built with junk yard parts every where but the 3 knife cutter head, pillar blocks & bearings! A fried with a Milling machine made that for me as my milling attachment was too small.. It milled many, many pieces of RR dunnage for my cabinets. Now any milling goes thru it for roughing out & only then will it go thru the new Delta TP for smoothing out.
I don't plan on quitting my pursuits anytime soon, hopefully not til they roll me into that big, big oven.:eek:

I've been trying for 45 minutes to upload a photo of my best brass cannon but I keep getting a notice that my file is too large..At last something in my life is too large, never thought I'd see that day! ;):rolleyes:

These new fangled contraptions are too complicated for this old Ky backwoods boy transplanted to NJ in 56!
Have to wait for my youngest son to stop by, to borrow one of "OUR" tools , and have him show me how it's done!
Geez this has been mostly about flat n square stuff but from now it'll be roundy round stuff, like my other son's Modified race car that goes round & turns only to the left only!
Gene