Back Knife or CNC cutter for wood turning

[Brice Rogers]

A while back I toured a commercial wood-turning shop that used a CNC wood lathe. They used a special cutter that cut in a slicing mode rather than just scraping. The cutting edge of the tool was razor sharp and they were getting great curls of wood from it. They were getting a fairly decent finish from it which didn't require extensive sanding.

I suspect that the commercial versions are probably pretty pricey - - especially the carbide ones.

For projects like (amateur) sphere making or doing hand copying (like with a pattern follower), I'm wondering if hobbiests have made/used/tried a cutter like this:

[Richard Coers]

Those cutters have nothing to do with a back knife lathe. I use HSS versions on my HAPFO copy lathe.
hapfojames.jpg

[Brice Rogers]

The cutters that you use on your copy lathe - - could they be used manually or would they be too grabby for a hand-held tool?

[Richard Coers]

Too hard to control would be my guess. They have a large cutter area, and would want to twist if you cut on the sides.

[Brian Holcombe]

Are there anyone making these as a carbide insert and making them easily available in
the us/Europe? I’d like to buy a set.

[Brian Holcombe]

Well, I'm ordering one of their cutters for copy lathes and ordering also one for cutting tenons. I've looked all over for this stuff and these guys are the only producer of these in carbide. I'll be curious to see how they perform.

Unfortunately the Minimax T120 (not the 125) uses a 15mm x 15mm cutter and no one makes that, not even the euro makers of HSS knives. So I plan to recut this to accept the more common 20 x 20 size.