Shopsmith Forums

I forgot to mention - the angle of the chisel to the turning has a lot to do with the ease and feel of the cut. In Scraping, the chisel attacks the turning in almost a perpendicular angle. After rounding, done with a gouge, scraping is the method most used by newer turners. Scraping can give the turner the shape he wants, but is a bit slower than cutting and does tend to rip portions of more porous woods.

I personally had a hard time in learning a cutting (Shearing) method of shaping and struggled quite a while to try to get away from scraping. Finally at a traveling session with Rick Davis, I learned to ride the bevel. Here's how I would describe how to cut rather than scrape:

First lay the tool on the tool rest and the back of the tool on the turning. Then slide the tool back across the tool rest until the bevel of the tool is on the turning. Holding the tool firmly slowly let the sharp edge of the tool touch the turning wood. Bingo! it's now slicing, rather than scraping.

I'm still learning how to shear using the skew!

Bob
My chisels are original equipment that came with my ss which I bought in March 1990. Not much use though!
Bob
San Diego

BPR
I sharpen my gouge before each session for bowl turning and touch it up on the ss flat disk with 220 grit quite often. Not that often for pen turning.

the shopsmith tools that came with my '84 and '87 shopsmiths are hss.

bettyt44720 wrote:the shopsmith tools that came with my '84 and '87 shopsmiths are hss.

That's strange, my 1989 catalog says they're a steel alloy.

absolutely, hss or high speed steel is indeed an alloy steel.

I only hone my Skew chisels. Watched the DVD's by Alan Lacer and he shows honing them. It makes for better control of the Skew which was more difficult for me to learn than the gouge but can produce a very smooth cut.

It only takes a couple of seconds to hone a Skew with a diamond stone and it is much quicker to hone than resharpening it.