New Carbide Tools?? Anyone every use them?

[Steve Harder]

Steve, did you make the tool and the snake holder? I do like the Easy Wood C10 and Ci1, but I'm not sure that I want to pay 20 bucks for the round carbide cutter.

Homemade for about $60 - the most expensive material was the 1 1/4" trailer hitch receiver tube that I used as outside of the adjustable upright holder. The rest is 1" square and some bearings from the local machine shop.

As far as I know the round carbide cutter is only available from EasyTools - the round cutter you mentioned is not the same, it's fatter and doesn't have as good an edge for fine work. But you don't go thru the rounds that fast, you only use them for the last pass with a light cut. It's very forgiving and just snuggles up to the wood while taking a tiny shaving.

[Reed Gray]

The round flat type carbide discs cut like scrapers. The concave discs cut differently, and from my experience are extremely catch prone if you use them flat. Just too aggressive. This is why some of the hollowing tools that are disc cutters have the chip limiters on them. I never was able to get the chip limiter adjusted properly, seems they either didn't cut enough, or cut too much and plugged up.

I know that you can find the same micro/nano grained carbide discs and cutters out there, for a much better price, I just don't know where.

robo hippy

[gary butcher]

I have to admit to being very partial to the carbides. I have the easy rougher LE, easy rougher mini and easy finisher mini and they are my go to tools for making things. I use a skew as my scraper. I also use a bowl gauge as a shear scraper too but not as frequently.

I love the quick removal and accuracy of the square carbides too. The finishers round insert is great as a shear scraper as well.

[Dave Mueller]

I agree with Reed. The Hunter "cupped" carbide inserts are too grabby to be used flat. They need to be turned counter clockwise to a 45 degree down angle, but do cut very clean when used that way. I like the Easy Rougher flat round cutters used horizontal especially for hollowing. I know they scrape, but for endgrain they leave a beautiful finish.

I am modifying my homemade elbo tool for the flat round cutter like Steve did. I also just got an unhandled Rolly Munro shielded hollowing tool that I want to also try in the elbo tool. I got the Hunter cupped carbide round bit which I will try in the horizontal or slightly less than horizontal position. The Munro hollower leaves a really nice finish on both end and side grain, and I will not need to sharpen a round HSS bit using the Hunter carbide bit.

Incidentally, I talked to Mike Hunter about when to rotate the bit to a fresh edge, and he suggested doing a random rotation after every use so the whole bit wears evenly. Interesting thought.

[Gary Conklin]

In response to Reed's scraper post:

There is a great fix for minimizing catches with a scraper, make it a negative rake scraper. This is just the addition of a second bevel on the top side of the scraper, it makes for a smaller burr and fine finishing cut. That can only be done on carbide with a special grinding wheel.

[Reed Gray]

I have tried a negative rake scraper, and don't really find them practical. The burr is so fine that if you breathe on it, it is gone. Works okay for very minimal clean up work, but not much else. Definitely can't rough with it.

robo hippy