carbide turning tools

[jm51]

This guy has carbide insert ground to his specs...

http://thingswestern.com/3.html

[eartigas]

I saw a Capt. Eddie You Tube video when he does shearing cut with the carbide tool. Probably the geometry of the cutter helped; I believe was square but had somehow "rounded " sides.

[robinson46176]

I am going to be looking into some of these carbide insert scraping tools for a couple of reasons. One is that as I have posted before turning is not an area where I claim any particular expertise. I have done a small amount of turning over a lot of years but never enough to feel comfortable at it. I can get nice looking results but have gouged into a lot more pieces than I like to think about. I go quite slow and it is always a white knuckle job if it is of any size.
Another reason I am looking that direction is that my wife has expressed an interest and that scares me a little bit. I believe that it might be a good way for her to try it.
I am not concerned about sharpening, carbide is pretty soft when against a diamond wheel.


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[mgdesigns]

About sharpening the carbide cutters: If they have a flat top surface, you can remove the cutter and lay the flat on a diamond hone and re-surface just to top. Anew edge all around will result.

The cutters have been used for 50 years or more in the metal industry; just took time to trickle down to the wood hobbyists. I bought one of the golf handled types from Harrison Specialties on Ebay as a starter tool, and because of the round shank it is more difficult to control than my Easy Wood Tool with the 5/8" square shank. But the can be used to hog off a lot of material fast.

Here's a listing now for one of the golf club gouges:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Carbide-tipped- ... 403wt_1344

[nuhobby]

I think I read some one said they are only for scraping..... well if long streams of pealed turns are done by scraping then its news to me. You can produce a very large pile of turnings in a very short time without ever thinking about sharpening tools. Even then you need a sharp edge it only takes a rotation the cutter to have a fresh edge, or to simply put a fresh cutter on. It is more like how many projects can I do with the carbide rather then how many sharpening on this project.

I was just thinking about this topic lately as applied to flat surfaces. I now have an HNT Gordon block-plane with a reversible blade. Those Gordon planes work two ways:
Bevel-Down, Planing -- cutting angle is 55 to 60 degrees
Bevel-Up, Scraping -- cutting angle is 85 to 90 degrees.

Anyway, in the case of "scraping," it is actually possible to get a continuous ribbon of wood.

The scraping vs. planing definition seems to consist mostly of the cutting angle, and also the amount of power necessary to accomplish the cut. Scraping is a highly heat-intensive action, and it wears a blade faster than lower-angle planing.

[lightnin]

On eBay search round carbide insert or leave out round if you want other shapes.
I have seen them 10 for 20 bucks before.
When dulled you could rotate them and use another portion of the circumference.
Then discard and use another.