Shopsmith Forums

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've not had any problems using a skew on a bowl. HOWEVER, I do not use a conventional skew. I use one with oval sides and a radiused leading edge. Maybe that has saved me from stupid and dangerous results.
I never liked the traditional skew design. It was too difficult for me to "get it". I was watching someone and he was using an oval skew with a radius edge. He let me borrow his and it was MUCH more simple for me to control.
So those who had said so are absolutely correct that a conventional skew is most likely a dangerous flying weapon.
I guess I have a fairly nontradional approach to turning.
I also don't use a conventional carbide tipped lathe chisel for roughing and shaping (Easy Tools and that ilk, though I do,have a few like that,too). I use the Robert Sorby TurnMaster. It's design forces me to keep the lathe rest a couple inches from the turning stock. I also have some steel cutters for that system which I like for many finishing cuts, however the cutter holder can hold the edge of the cutter at 45 degrees to the work making a "sort of" shearing cut.
I will readily and quickly admit that how I work and what I use is just my preference and unfortunately too many times I think of answers in that mindset.
I also have a Tormenk T-7 to keep my conventional edges as sharp as I can. I found that I made way too many errors, often mental lapses, when the tool became dull, so I tried to make it do what it couldn't do as easily as if it were sharp.
Dennis, my apologies for suggesting a skew for your bowl turning. . However, if you get the chance to try an oval skew with a radius cutting edge it might change how you look at turning as an inspiration
Again, sorry if I led you down a bad and dangerous path.

Be well,
Ben

I've been debating posting this but what the heck.

I know some people who do abrasive turning. No cutting other then general shape and then off to things like rasps, and assorted things like micro plane cutters and then of course sand paper.

I've used a plane on turnings, in fact I believe shopsmith even showed that some where back in the day. I made the sander and the stock support that required turned cylinders and did the tuning with a plane and then sanded. I've only done those two items that way but it worked quite well.

Of late I did some osage orange and after a catch on the very last moment on the first pen body I just got close the second time around and used sanding to get it to finish it. Other pens I normally turn to the end and sand to finish but in this case I did not want to repeat my problem. It actually worked quite well but it goes a lot slower.

I've also used the 12" sanding disk to finish rounds, it works really well and I have a post here somewhere where I showed doing so. That I think was also a shopsmith thing that I learned back in yesteryear.

If you have some wood to play with then give a few things a try.

The turnmaster is an interesting tool but if you happen to use it on wet wood, well it will rust pretty good. That is what happened to mine. Used it wiped it off and then didn't get back for couple of days and by then, well use your imagination. I have it oiled and stored and will polish it up some day. None of my other tools have ever done that even the other tools I used on that wood that same day.

Ed

Well guys, I digested all of your advice, and watched a bunch of videos. Wow, there's an awful lot of art to turning, and I don't think I ever found two turners who agree on the best technique!

First, I installed a 600-grit belt on my sander, in hopes of getting a sharper edges on my basic Shopsmith lathe tools. It seemed to help a bit, but not a lot. Then I tried my hand at shearing with the bowl gouge. (And I wore a full face mask at all times.) Better again, but still not where I needed to be. Then I tried burnishing a burr on the freshly-sharpened round-nosed scraper, using a hard screwdriver shaft for a burnishing tool. The results were better again, but the burr had to be re-formed every minute or so. Then I tried flattening the face of the scraper, like you would a plane blade, except I only did a quick-and-dirty flattening near the cutting edge. Big improvement this time! I was able to clean up the outside of the bowl nicely, making nice wispy shavings in the process. In the pic below, I've cleaned up near the rim, and the tearout is virtually gone. (The bowl bottom still needs to be shaped and mortised for the chuck.)
I got the basic idea from this Veritas Scraper Burnisher product info. The illustration below shows the burr geometry.
Later, when working on the inside of the bowl, I re-flattened the scraper face, and did a decent job of it this time. HUGE difference. Afterward, I was able to turn up a nice big smooth burr that looked like the one in the Veritas illustration. Not only could I feel it, I could see it clearly with my naked eye. It cut like a dream, even faster than a bowl gouge, and I don't thing I had to resharpen once when finishing the inside of the bowl.

So Mike, with the help of Veritas and all you guys, I think I turned the SS round-nosed scraper into a poor man's shear scraper. Finishing up the inside of the bowl, I was wishing I had a one with a bigger nose radius, for better smoothing. Then I watched your Al Stirt video, and it looks like I was on the right track!

BD,thats why I dont turn!!!! I am glad for you though

All that turning today raised another question. When hogging out the waste from the inside of the bowl, I first tried the 1" gouge. But regardless of how I presented it to the workpiece, it caused excessive chatter. So I switched to the 3/8" gouge. It was better, but I still had to take very light cuts, even after tuning the RPM to minimize the chatter. I got the impression that flex in the tool rest was the biggest problem. I had to live with some chatter on & off until I switched over to my home-brew shear scraper for finishing.

I've heard a lot of good things about the SS universal tool rest. Do you guys find that it reduces chatter significantly?

I also have a 10ER that is earmarked for future lathe duty. Can the UTR be adapted to it? If not, which makes a better lathe -- Mark V with the UTR, or a 10ER?

For my two cents, and that is about all it's worth I suspect, I like to have some other types of wood stock mounted to a face plate that I can quickly attach in place of the stock I am turning as that will help me determine what is causing the problems.

Speed is right, tool is correct to the job, has a proper edge, and technique is right, but results produce tear-out, then the stock itself must be cross-checked against other stock.

Stabilizing the stock with resin or fillers may be the only workable remedy for the issue in some cases.

You found something that helped, and that's excellent, but sometimes nothing seems to help and that bedpost is the size of a dowel.

Everett

I don't know anything about ERs, but the Universal Tool Rest sits on top of the carriage and is attached with two bolts and a bar that spans the bottom of the carriage. It shouldn't be too hard to attach to the ER carriage, unless it is too narrow to provide the proper support.

Mike

BE
Glad you got it figured out. When going from the grinder to the lathe is that the burr is more Slag than steel. The Slag is made from grinding wheel dust and metal particles that are very soft and wear away quickly. From Wartburg Germany.
Bill V

BE I am glad you are figuring out options that work for you. Everyone has their favorite techniques that work for them. I will admit that using a scew takes practice butI don't consider it a dangerous or even risky technique. Best to start with spindles and practice a little though. There are also a lot of fellow turners that literally do 98 % of their turning with a 1/2 inch gouge with a fingernail grind ( some call it an Ellsworth grind) and achieve amazing results. I tend to use them all. Just how I was taught. Bowl scrapers work well and I do use them also and as in all tools require a sharp edge. Check out the Internet for a local turning club. You can learn a lot in an afternoon with an experienced turner. Most are more than willing to let you spend time in their shop. A little warning though. Most turning clubs including mine ( Orange County Woodturners) will bad mouth the SS and most of them do not consider it a "serious" lathe which is total BS. As far as sharpening your chisels if you have a belt sander you have the only tool you need. Somewhere on this forum I have posted my method of sharpening using the belt sander. You should be able to find it with a search. It will give you razor sharp edges on everything including your scrapers without taking the time to burnish an edge. The Steady Rest by the way IMHO a great tool and worth the money. Keep turning !
Paul

masonsailor2 wrote:BE I am glad you are figuring out options that work for you. Everyone has their favorite techniques that work for them. I will admit that using a scew takes practice butI don't consider it a dangerous or even risky technique. Best to start with spindles and practice a little though. There are also a lot of fellow turners that literally do 98 % of their turning with a 1/2 inch gouge with a fingernail grind ( some call it an Ellsworth grind) and achieve amazing results. I tend to use them all. Just how I was taught. Bowl scrapers work well and I do use them also and as in all tools require a sharp edge. Check out the Internet for a local turning club. You can learn a lot in an afternoon with an experienced turner. Most are more than willing to let you spend time in their shop. A little warning though. Most turning clubs including mine ( Orange County Woodturners) will bad mouth the SS and most of them do not consider it a "serious" lathe which is total BS. As far as sharpening your chisels if you have a belt sander you have the only tool you need. Somewhere on this forum I have posted my method of sharpening using the belt sander. You should be able to find it with a search. It will give you razor sharp edges on everything including your scrapers without taking the time to burnish an edge. The Steady Rest by the way IMHO a great tool and worth the money. Keep turning !
Paul

Thanks, Paul. I remember reading your sharpening thread, and a Google search found it in short order. I really like the idea of turning new handles for the SS lathe tools. I've never had any problems turning handles and such -- they are a lot of fun. But after turning a fair-sized bowl from a dried solid blank, I can see that longer handles would help a lot with muscle fatigue, if nothing else!

I also love the idea of hanging with experienced woodturners for an afternoon or three. And I'll probably do it, after the last two kids are off to college. Until then, late-night YouTube is my friend!

As for a belt-sander sharpening jig, at this point in my life, time is in shorter supply than cash. So what do you think of the SS strip sander sharpening jig? It looks like it should work much the same as your beltsander jig.