How To Use Wood Lathe Tools

Posted February 20, 2017

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These are the lathe tools that I use. From front to back, they are: a 3/4″ roughing gouge; a 3/4″ spindle gouge; a ane/4″ "lady finger" gouge; a 1/2″ spindle gouge; 3/4″, 1/2″ and 1/4″ skews; a i/two″ diamond bespeak; and a iii/16″ parting tool.

When it comes to turned furniture components, you only have a few options. Yous can purchase mass-produced factory-turned components that practice not accurately recreate the fine details in period furniture; you lot can make friends with a turner; or you tin can invest in a lathe and turn your own. If you decide to get with the third option you'll need some woodturning tools (in addition to your lathe). This tin can seem like a huge additional investment just you lot might not need quite equally much as you lot remember. In this excerpt from "Woodturning Techniques: Piece of furniture & Cabinetmaking," accolade-winning piece of furniture maker Mike Dunbar explains which woodturning tools y'all'll need.

Selecting Woodturning Tools

Most novice turners accept two major misconceptions about lathe tools. First, someone who has not worked on the lathe imagines turning to exist a herculean struggle between himself and the wood, in which he is required to be armed with hefty tools. Second, novice turners presume that in guild to do a wide variety of turnings they need a wide variety of tools.

Tool catalogues reinforce the latter misconception by displaying a vast assortment of turning chisels. Merely open a contempo catalogue and you volition note the mind-boggling selection of turning tools offered. Unless you know what yous are looking at, yous will apace become confused.

There is one important point to bear in heed when pondering the vast selection of tools available. Many of the tools offered for sale will non be useful to you lot as long as you are turning betwixt centers. For this reason, exercise non purchase a great number of tools right abroad. Also, practise not buy boxed sets of tools. These, too, volition contain tools that you will non frequently need. In fact, in one case you accept get more experienced on the lathe, you volition be surprised at how few lathe tools you do use.

The post-obit tools are useful for nigh beginners: a 3/4″ roughing gouge, a 3/4″ and a 1/iv″ spindle (lady finger) gouge, a 1/2″ and a iii/4″ skew, and a 3/16″parting tool. A one-i/four″ roughing gouge, a i/ii″ spindle gouge, and a 1/four″ skew tin be bought later if you detect that you demand them.

Roughing Gouge

A roughing gouge is a heavy tool well suited for the fast removal of waste product wood. Information technology is a deep flute gouge that has its cutting border ground straight across in the same manner as bench and carving gouges.

In use, a roughing gouge cuts a deep trough out of the corners of the spinning blank. At the same time, the cutting border's straight sides completely sever the chip, and then there is fiddling or no tearout from the surrounding forest. Although the roughing gouge is a very aggressive tool that cuts a thick chip, at the same fourth dimension it keeps the process nether command.

A roughing gouge's cut edge (correct) is ground straight beyond, while the edges of spindle gouges (left and center) are rounded similar your fingernails.

Spindle Gouge

Spindle gouges usually have lighter blades than roughing gouges and accept standard flutes. Rather than being used to round the blank (although they tin can practice this on calorie-free work), spindle gouges are used to shape the various elements that make upwardly a turning. The round cut edge is necessary, as the corners created by a straight border could catch in the end grain when you are cutting coves and other concave shapes.

Skews

The cutting edge of a skew is formed past two bezels, and is aligned with the blade'southward center.

The skew is a flat chisel with dual bezels, one ground on each side of the wide bract. The skew is perhaps the nearly difficult turning tool to learn to employ properly, but it is too the most versatile. The more accomplished the woodturner the more than he relies on his skews for roughing, paring and planing (finishing).

Parting Tool

The parting tool also has 2 bezels, simply they are footing on the bract's narrow edges. This aligns the cutting edge with the thick rib running down the middle of the blade.

The parting tool is used for dividing a blank into segments (which are and then shaped with other tools), for establishing depths, and for cut pieces out of the lathe.

For more than in depth information about woodturning tools every bit well as turning techniques, tool maintenance, prophylactic and more check out Mike Dunbar's "Woodturning Techniques: Furniture & Cabinetmaking," available at present at ShopWoodworking.com.

Product Recommendations

Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. Nosotros may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.