3/8" Gouge Chatter??

[Reed Gray]

For the M2 HSS tools, you can burnish a burr using the traditional burnishing rods that are used on the card scrapers. The triangle one works better. For the M42 and V10 metals, it is more difficult to raise that burr with anything other than a carbide rod. First one I made was a carbide drill bit that had been 'resharpened' and came in a small box with a bunch of tiny ones. A small diameter router bit will work as well.

I have been going back and forth on the burnished burr thing. For some reason, experimenting is a necessity to me...... Some times, the burr from the grinder seems to work just fine. I can turn it down and back up once or twice, then go back to the grinder. I can also hone a burr on the scrapers, using a medium or fine diamond hone. Lately, while turning some figured big leaf maple that is pretty green, I have been using both shear scrapers and NRSs on it, and the burr from a 600 grit CBN wheel seems to cut as well as just about any other burr. I need to get the 1000 grit wheel up on another grinder to play with it as well.

With the NRSs, I still prefer one with a 60/25 or 60/30 grind. It seems that the burr holds up a lot better if there is some metal under it to support the burr. The 30/30 ones just don't hold up as well.

The bass wood is pretty soft, and I wouldn't expect it to cut as cleanly with a NRS as the black locust would. Still, as some one said, a NRS is a high maintenance tool. I spend more time touching up that edge than any other tool I use. Also, it is just for fine finish cuts, not any type of stock removal.

robo hippy

[Lawrence Duckworth]

All very interesting John. never ever heard of cabinet scrapers.
That fixture you're using in the banjo looks very handy too.


I made a burr tool this morning and sharpened the tools, knocked off the grinding bur, stropped and put a new bur on with the bur tool.....made quite a difference, even so I'll need some practice.


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.20 end mill.


Reed I turned a cherry cylinder (3"x12") most of the afternoon, practicing with the scraper. Thanks for your help!

[John K Jordan]

I hold pieces in the Articulated Carving and Finishing Post from Best Wood Tools. (I see he has it on sale right now; I paid a lot more than that for mine.) You have to order it with the thread that will fit your lathe/chuck.

I, and some others I know, like this one best due to the way it’s designed. I’d hate to turn bowls and platters without it!

BTW, to burnish a burr I lay the burnishing rod on the lower bevel of the scraper, then raise the handle just a few degrees, apply moderate pressure against the edge, then slide the rod from one end of the edge to the other once or twice. Experiment with the angle, pressure, and # of passes. You should get whisper-thin shavings from the wood.

JKJ

[Lawrence Duckworth]

This is working! Thank 🏁🏁🏁


Btw John thanks for the fixture link. I ordered one this morning. I could have used one of these many times. Fwiw I welded an adapter to a length of pipe and dropped it in the banjo…. Probably not an original idea but it worked okay. Also ordered cabinet scrappers from Amazon. Gotta give it a try 🤷*♂️

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Another Thank You! to JKJ. A fixture is hopefully on it's way to me. They sometimes add a lot for shipping. Hopefully it won't cost too much to ship.
You should get a commission for selling them.... LOL

[John K Jordan]

...cabinet scrappers from Amazon. ...

If you shape the outlines of cabinet scrapers to fit bowls and such: I've tried different methods and the best for me is a coarse grit on a 1" belt sander. A bench grinder with either conventional or CBN wheels generated too much heat for me, turned the edges blue. A light touch on the bench grinder didn't. In general I prefer the better quality name-brand card scrapers but the cheaper ones are still useful.

Cabinet scraper sets often come with a gooseneck scraper. I found this more useful if I cut the end off with a metal-cutting disk on a Dremel. This gave me a small scraper to hold between thumb and fingers, and a larger curved scraper.
scraper_PB054025_s.jpg

That, BTW, is how I got started using these scrapers a decade and half ago. I was turning a cedar bowl and followed the advice of others to hold sandpaper against the rotating piece. Ack - the cedar started developing tiny heat checks! I thunked and thunked and cut the end off a gooseneck scraper, sharpened it, and found it worked like a charm to smooth without heat and required very little sanding. I've been evangelizing hand scrapers ever since.

My cedar bowl from long ago (my first "real" bowl after a couple of practice bowls):

cedar_bowl.jpg

Note that you can and I occasionally do use a hand scraper on a rotating piece, but use common sense. One guy on a forum reported holding a largish scraper inside a closed form and when it got away from him it caught inside the piece and turned into a food processor. Yikes. (Drop a small scraper inside and it will simply fall to the inner surface, but no need to do that anyway.) When I want to use a scraper to smooth the inside of a rotating piece I use one of these, a scraper (Sorby's or mine) mounted on a Sorby handle. I probably use the Sorby teardrop scraper the most (1/8" thick carbon steel), turned to fit the profiles as needed.

card_scraper_sorby_handle.jpg

Note that you can also by small curved scrapers in sets. I bought one set from Highland Hardware and one from Woodcraft. They are thin and I don't like them as well thicker scrapers made from high quality cabinet scrapers, but they are cheap and still useful on occasion.

JKJ, certified "card carrying" scraper fanatic

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Wow! This is a great morning! Thanks JKJ!
I'm going home and cut my gooseneck scraper and reshape it too...
BTW I also use a 1/8" thick hardened steel, copying the idea of the ultimate scraper from Stew Mac. You can get a 1/8" X 1" flat stock from Grainger. This is like the small part of the cut off gooseneck. Card scrapers are way easier to sharpen.

[Edward Weber]

The grinder burr is coarse and relatively weak while the burnished burr can be smooth and stronger and last longer.
JKJ

A burr produced by the grinder is simply an artifact formed during the process of removing metal. A small amount of metal is drawn accross the bevel and remains on the cutting edge. This is typically very thin and usually does not last long.
A burnished burr is stronger because it's formed by a type of cold forming, resulting in a work hardened burr. Cold forming actually changes the structure of the steel making it harder but a bit less durable (more brittle) Burrs don't last long.
Strength and durability are all relative especially when comparing a turning scraper and a cabinet scraper. The number of feet of wood that passes by the cutting edge and how the burr's are usually formed on each tool make it too dissimilar IMO to accurately compare.
Apples & Oranges

[John K Jordan]

Wow! This is a great morning! Thanks JKJ!
I'm going home and cut my gooseneck scraper and reshape it too...
BTW I also use a 1/8" thick hardened steel, copying the idea of the ultimate scraper from Stew Mac. You can get a 1/8" X 1" flat stock from Grainger. This is like the small part of the cut off gooseneck. Card scrapers are way easier to sharpen.

Four years ago I bought 54" of flat 1/8x1.5" tool steel. I have a plasma cutter and I'm not afraid to use it. When I can find time...

I usually buy from Online Metals. In general, their prices are less than Grainger and some other places I checked, sometimes significantly cheaper. Just got more free-machining steel and brass this week.

JKJ

[John K Jordan]

Another Thank You! to JKJ. A fixture is hopefully on it's way to me. They sometimes add a lot for shipping. Hopefully it won't cost too much to ship.
You should get a commission for selling them.... LOL

Maybe he has some in stock ready to send out. I had to wait a while when I got mine a few years ago. Then, and maybe still, it was a one-man operation.

I like this far more than the Treat Bosch carving jig. His design unlocks the piece with a lever and the chuck and wood has to be repositioned awkwardly until the handle is tightened. Just watch his video and see him fumble. The Best Wood Tools version has one locking handle that allows tilting to a comfortable angle. Loosening the second handle maintains the tilt but allows rotation. This is perfect for rotating a turning around the axis while scraping, sanding, or carving. Might be a bit more "trouble" than a single handle but well worth it, I think.

Fits in a 1" banjo as well as a supplied mount for the workbench. I fastened the mount to a piece of wood and clamp it in a woodworking vise on my workbench for those rarer times when working away from the lathe.

carving_stand_IMG_7422.jpg carvinig_stand_A.jpg carving_stand_IMG_20171111_162052_024.jpg

I don't power sand with a rotating disk on a drill but I do sometimes use gentle, low-speed sanding with a pneumatic random orbital sander. The rotation around the axis is perfect for that - hold the sander still and rotate the piece under it. Here a student with a 3" palm ROS from WoodTurners Wonders, with a 2" Grex pistol grip ROS for the other side of these "small squarish dished platters". 400 and 600 grit disks in these ROS make a beautifully smooth surface in short order. The stand also makes hand sanding easier. even on rims.

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I used to do all this with the piece on the lathe with the power off and the spindle locked but this is far easier on my back and far, far easier to see what I'm doing. I believe it was turner John Lucas who showed me this device.

JKJ, addicted to pictures

[Lawrence Duckworth]

A burnished burr is stronger because it's formed by a type of cold forming, resulting in a work hardened burr.

I'm bettin that's why the 60/30 grind is preferred, I tried putting a bur on a skew with a pretty long grind and I swear I heard it cracking.

[John K Jordan]

...I tried putting a bur on a skew with a pretty long grind and I swear I heard it cracking.

Another (older) name for burnishing a burr is "ticketing" because of the "tick, tick" sound when used on some edges. The hardened burnishing rod was called a ticketer.

I read this in a book on woodturning published about 70 years ago. It also discussed using card scrapers on turnings. Sometimes we think we are on the cutting edge of turning but are using techniques and tools in use long ago! Of course, we have better steels, fancy variable speed/reverse lathes, lasers and cameras for hollowing...

But why did you want a burr on a skew chisel? To use it as a scraper? Blasphemy!

JKJ

[Reed Gray]

Grinder burrs are highly variable. I guess most of it depends on the metal. Standard M2 is good for roughing out at least 1 12 to 14 inch bowl. The M42 and V10 is good for 2 or 3 bowls. The Big Ugly tool with tantung on it, stellite is a very similar metal, is good for 10 or more bowls. My preference is for a 180 grit wheel. You don't have to apply much pressure, which is actually the difference between grinding and sharpening. I do think the 600 grit wheels produce a sharper burr, but it isn't as durable.

One experiment I need to do is to hone the scraper burrs sideways, rather than the standard grinder burr where the wheel is at 90 degrees to the top of the scraper. It does produce a different burr, but I haven't figures out exactly what those differences are....

robo hippy