Has anyone ever made a really good DIY Lathe Chisel?

[wildcard]

Woodcraft has very high prices for lathe tools, even the self branded ones, the 2 alternatives i have found that have worked great for me are. Crafts supplies, and penn state industries, both have fair/good quality tools and they are not anywhere near as expensive as woodcraft, as in you could get 4-5 tools for the price of 1.

I have been useing the psi tools for a while, and have no isses at all with it

[RobertTaylor]

Hi,

With a little help from a fellow member I too have the homemade inexpensive "easy rougher". I have to say this is the most used of my lathe tools. All of my early ruff work is done this way now and I love it!

Ed

ty Ed for the compliment. looks like i forgot to add the link. lol i'm getting bad at stuff like that.

http://www.woodworkinglathe.com/page4.htm

[iclark]

Q: Has anyone here ever made a really good homemade chisel, suitable for turning bowls?

first, if your bench chisel is a socket headed handle, don't even consider it.

as for making tools, the Turning 101 course at the local Woodcraft has everyone make a scraper. we turned and drilled the handle on the lathe, cut and tapped ferrules, and used a grinder to make a reversible scraper out of 1/4" tool steel. one end straight and one end round tipped and we broke the corners on the rod so that the tool rest holds up longer. the tapped hole in the ferrule and a set screw lets you reverse the steel to use the end that you want. it works fine. the ferrule on the handle is important. copper or brass are the easiest to make. some people have been using large brass nuts from the plumbing section of the big box stores.

other members of the local turners club have made seriously nice tools of various sorts. the ornament turners are fond of making skews out of 1/4" and 3/8" round tool steel.

one member makes bowl gouges from larger round stock. the slow part is cutting the flute.

in terms of sharpening the chisels with your lapidary tools, if you decide that you like turning, you might want to consider what the wear and tear on the lapidary tools are going to cost you in expendables versus picking up a slow speed 8" grinder.

if you decide to go with the fingernail grind bowl gouge, you are going to want to make or buy a sharpening jig. I have seen pros do that one freehand, but it is not a beginner's level skill.

the woodriver house brand at woodcraft is not all that much more expensive than the entry level tools at the sites mentioned above
http://www.woodcraft.com/Family/2005238 ... Tools.aspx
the 1/2" fingernail bowl gouge is ~$46 full retail. they have a $15 off on $75 purchase at the moment. I bought one to use and to learn sharpening on.

also, the SS lathe tools are quite decent. they do not always tell us if they are HSS or just tool steel in the listings. the HSS hold an edge better. if you bought your SS used, you may have a set of them in one of the boxes that came with it.

welcome to the vortex,
Ivan

[mgdesigns]

Thanks for the additional info. I did not receive any chisels with this really used '56 SS. I do have a 12" long wooden handled Buck Brothers 1/2-round chisel, and a set of Bucks with hard plastic handles (V, Lg & Sml U, Bent shank U, Skew and straight) chisels.

I have seen some long golf club-type handled replaceable tungsten carbide cutter chisels, and they look intersting. They seem price right, and the demo flicks show them to be aggressive and durable gouges. They are made by this company: Harrison Specialties, and seem to be OK.

As for the wear and tear of the lapidary grinders - I have cut over 3000 gemstones on my original diamond sintered Crystallite wheel, because I always run them with water drip or spray, and they can cut anything - even diamonds (don't ask how I know). They can cut steel, HSS, or Tungsten Carbide steel, and I have used them to shape and sharpen my hand engraving gravers from time to time. Here's an example of the type of hand engraving I do - I use a microscope to get into the details.

[pennview]

Here are a few homemade lathe chisels.

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These were made from cut nails and work well for detailing miniature turnings or pens, etc. They were ground on the sanding disk, taking care not to overheat the edges, and then mounted in 1/2" or 5/8" dowels. The two beading cutters were first drilled, as I recall with a 1/8" drill bit, and then ground. One also could use old allen wrenches instead of the cut nails.

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These were ground from old files and are quite large and attached to long oak handles and secured with band clamps. They work, but the bodies of the tools haven't been ground, so they are hard on the tool rest. Since files are brittle and could break easily, I'd not be inclined to use them where catches while turning are possible, nor are they appropriate for the inexperienced turner.

[pennview]

Thanks for the additional info. I did not receive any chisels with this really used '56 SS. I do have a 12" long wooden handled Buck Brothers 1/2-round chisel, and a set of Bucks with hard plastic handles (V, Lg & Sml U, Bent shank U, Skew and straight) chisels.

The the Buck 1/2" round chisel sounds like a lathe turning chisel, but the others are likely carving chisels and could get you in trouble if used for turning. I've attached a picture of the Shopsmith 1/2" round chisel which is about 16" in length. So, if yours doesn't look like this one, perhaps it's not a lathe chisel.

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The Shopsmith chisels I got with my Mark V back in 1980 were made by the Great Neck tool company. In addition to supplying Shopsmith, they sold them under the Buck Brothers label and through Montgomery Wards and perhaps others as well. The newer Shopsmith tools have a different handle design and I don't have one to compare with the older tools, so I don't know if they're currently coming from Great Neck or not.

Someone mentioned earlier that Shopsmith doesn't specify what type of steel is used in their lathe chisels. But, I see that the current Great Neck lathe tools are labeled as being made of "high carbon tool steel," and since they look like my old Shopsmith tools, I'd guess the old ones are the same metal.

[beeg]

The lathe tools from 1980 are made of carbon steel. So ya have to be careful while grinding them, so ya don't lose the temper. You can tell the type of steel, by the spark pattern when grinding them.

[pennview]

Beeg, thanks for the input. I did grind a set of Shopsmith chisels the other day, but I didn't take note of the spark pattern. In any event, I just looked at the Shopsmith web site and see that they say the 5-piece set is of high speed steel and that this has been the standard Shopsmith set for many, many years. Great Neck advertises theirs as high carbon tool steel. Whatever the metal, they work well and hold an edge.

[woodburner]

Fellow Woodturners,

I believe Shopsmith has been having their chisels made of high speed steel for some time now. My first set I received with my SS are carbon steel, but later sets I have purchased from them are HSS.

If the chisels you have are stamped with HSS on them, they are high speed steel. The carbon steel chisels do not have anything stamped on them regarding the type of steel they are made of.

Also, all of the SS turning chisels are made overseas now.

Using carving chisels for turning is not a good idea. Most are mae of cold steel and will break under the pressure woodturning will force on them. If you are just starting out in woodturning, you are much better off buying some actual lathe chisels. With experience, you can gain the knowlege you need to make your own chisels. Just guessing at what angles and grinds you need will probably lead to injury. Shop around online for a decent set of lathe chisels. Harbor frieght sells a complete set of spindle tools for around $30.00, along with Grizzly Woodworking Tools. They are no means the best, but they can get you started and also give you an idea of how much grinding is actually involved in creating certain types of chisels.

Gouges are the toughest to make from scratch as you need to be able to cut a flute in the round bar. You will need a metal/machining lathe to accomplish that.

[shipwright]

I need some turned finials for a table I'm making. It would be nice if they were identical so I thought I might try using shaper knives. I happened to have about three feet of brass bar in the shop so I drilled it and bolted the cutters on and guess what? It worked like a charm. I may not use these particular cutters but the idea does work. It makes me think I may have made the round corners on my kitchen crown moldings the hard way, I think you can probably use the same cutters on the lathe to make corners that you use in the shaper to make the straight parts. (Round outside corners on crown molding is a characteristic of antique French country furniture)

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Paul M