Continental style spindle gouge - any users with thoughts?

[Bob Hamilton]

Lee Valley carries the Henry Taylor forged gouges: http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/pag...33,43164,43175

Bob

[Dale Miner]

John,

I have two of them. One came in a set from Harbor Freight (1"), and one is a Henry Taylor (3/4"). They are the cats meow for larger diameter spindle grain orientation work. I have a thumbnail grind on both of them (not enough to be called a fingernail). They are perfect for large and medium convex and concave curves. They can be used handle down roughing gouge fashion to rapidly remove stock, and as Reed mentioned, handle near horizontal with a bevel contact high shear to get an almost skew like cut with very little chance of a run back.

I actually use the Harbor Freight more often than the Henry Taylor due to the larger size. It needs sharpening fairly often, but for larger spindle work and spindle oriented forms, it is my go to gouge.

Try one. After you use it enough to get comfortable with it, I'm betting you will leave the bowl gouge in the tool rack for spindle orientation work.

[Richard Allen]

Yes they are primarily straight across. The corners come in very handy for some cuts. This is especially true when you want to make the cut close to a feature like cutting up to a bead. I have never had an issue with these corners getting unexpectedly caught while turning. The grabbiness come from the tool coming off the bevel. If I pay close attention to the bevel they work great. If I just go for it with these tools I can quickly lose the bevel and the tools starts to skate. The dark handle tools (Henry Taylor) are much much thicker than the Sorby tools. 8.5 mm, 6.5 mm, 3.5 mm, 3.5 mm. The effect of the different thickness is primarily stability. The big tool can hog off wood like a roughing gouge. The smaller tools are more delicate. But these don't feel like detail tools. They feel like purposeful instruments of wood removal.

[Mark Levitski]

John, I have a 1 1/4" German spindle gouge from Packard(Hamlet). I bought it to rough out large spindles/endgrain work. I have no "roughing gouge". I am not into small spindle work, and I don't do finials on my HF's. This gouge works very well for me. The shallow flattened C flute requires keeping the cutting portion over the fulcrum of the toolrest or it will turn and catch on you. Flat on the rest is no problem of course. But to do a more shear angle with the flute facing 1 to 2 or 10 to 11 o'clock, it takes some control and finesse. The smaller diameters probably are more forgiving with this. I can use this gouge to make smooth, general cuts to shape endgrain pieces. Since I got my smaller normal spindle gouges, I usually use these for that. There is, however, really little difference. This big gouge is hefty and I never worry about the tang giving way.

This gouge works better than my bowl gouges for this purpose, for sure.

P.S.-- My German spindle gouge has a somewhat swept-back grind and looks just like the photo Thom supplied.

[John Keeton]

Mark, that is exactly the input I was looking for! It just seemed that there must be a better option than a bowl gouge for forming endgrain pieces between centers. Thanks!

[Ryan Baker]

I have one and I like it. I find it is really good for long, sweeping curves on between-center work. Mine is pretty much ground straight across, and the bevel is about 45 degrees I would guess. I'd like to pick up a larger, better one than what I have, but I haven't gotten around to it since I really don't use it that often.

[John Keeton]

I appreciate all the input. This morning, I ordered a Hamlet 1.25" German spindle gouge from Packard, along with a few more smaller items I couldn't resist! Also, reground the spindle gouge from the HF set to more of a thumbnail grind (thanks, Dale!) and will give it a try soon. I started with a 45* bevel, and will go from there when I start playing with them.

Interestingly, I watched a YouTube video of a fellow turning a huge porch post and he was using a similar gouge for nearly all the cove and bead work, along with making beads with a parting tool - pretty slick!

[John Keeton]

For those that may have followed this thread, I did email Doug Thompson about the possibility of making this gouge. He replied that the continental gouge is forged from flat stock, so it would be very difficult to make one from the 10V steel. The cost, if it could be done at all would be sky high, where Sorby/HT etc can manufacture M2 cheap.

[Jamie Donaldson]

John, don't succumb to the "1 tool away from greatness" lure of tool collecting! I don't believe that a continental style gouge would offer any advantage over the tools that you already own and use. I gave away the one that came with my original Greenlee carbon tool set and have never missed it, so for sake of new tool entertainment I can loan you Rude's original design "spindle skew" that will offer a similar learning experience, white knuckles and all!

[Reed Gray]

A 1 inch wide, by 3/8 thick bar stock, with the bottom corners rounded over to about a 1/4 inch radius, and the nose in a ) profile will do the same cuts, essentially a fluteless gouge. Every time I demo with the fluteless gouge, or have a mentoring session where I let people play with them, a couple of them are ordered. Good tool, but most just don't know about them.

The spindle skew shown above is the same thing, though the bottom side edges are not rounded over.

robo hippy

[John Keeton]

Jamie, I have never felt there was "one tool" that would solve all issues, but it seems the wider spindle gouge has its place in doing sweeping curves on endgrain work. I will report back when I get a chance to try the Hamlet I have already purchased. That said, bring that tool to the next meeting and I will play with it at the same time for comparison! What you have appears to be considerably more shallow than the Hamlet, but I do not have either in hand, so it is difficult to say.

[Hayes Rutherford]

John, have you tried a cheap 1" Benjamins Best spindle roughing gouge? (Ground straight across as already mentioned and angled in the direction of cut.) There may be tools that will hold an edge longer but nothing out there will be a significant improvement in the cut.

[John Keeton]

Hayes, I am also pondering another roughing gouge - I am still using the HF roughing gouge, which I think is 1". It actually does a fairly good job, but if the piece is 6-7" in diameter or larger, it can be fairly rough going. I had looked at the BB 2" - just for the mass. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Dan Forman]

I have both a 1/2" continental gouge from Henry Taylor, and a Fluteless gouge from Doug Thompson. I find my results are inconsistent with both, I'm sure it's not the tools fault. Sometimes they work wonderfully, others they are hard to control. I would no doubt benefit from some live tutoring. I should say that most of my experience is using them for bowls, not for between center turnings. For your intended purpose, I think you will like the continental gouge.

Dan

[Terry Gerros]

John,

Go to the Sorby website, UK site that is. They have the Continental spindle gouge from 8mm to 35mm. I use the 30mm gouge and it is one of my go to tools. Just bought the 9/16" forged gouge from Craft Supply (rex & kip) which I am expecting to also be shaped like the continental gouge.

Terry