Angles for bowl gouges

[Don Meyer]

I came across a thread on another forum that stated when the angle of the bowl gouge is correct and the gouge is sharpened correctly that turning is effortless. My question is what are most of you more experienced turners grinding the nose angle of your gouges? I have been using Thompson bowl gouges and I have been trying to keep the 60 degree angle on them that they came with.Is this a good all around angle to use or should I be attempting to grind another angle? I believe that I have been getting them sharp enough by using the Wolverine jig for sharpening. Thanks

[Wally Dickerman]

Yeah, sure, turning is effortless but not until you've mastered the use of the gouge.

Bowl gouge grinds are an individual preference sort of thing. Among the top experts, Ellsworth and Jorden grind theirs at 60 deg. Mike Mahoney and Stuart Batty grind theirs at 40 deg. A huge difference. Any place in between is okay. It all depends on how you learn to use your tool and what you are turning.

In my own turning, I grind my 5/8 in. gouges at 60 deg. I have 3/8 that has a different sort of grind for a special purpose and that's ground at around 50 deg. My pet 1/4 in. gouge is ground at 45 deg. I use that tool a lot around the rim and foot for detail work.

The point is...there is no "regular or correct" grind.

Wally

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I just got my Thompsons in the mail, and the angle they came with, is the exact same angle that I've been using on my Sorby gouge. It's 65 degrees, on my Tormek. I was pretty happy with the fact that I did use the angle that Doug sharpens his tools to...... Does that mean that I know what I'm doing? Absolutely not.... Just lucky. Still a beginner.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I have 4 gouges with one at 45 deg, 2 at about 50 to 55 deg and the one at 60 deg.

[David E Keller]

I think most people would recommend you grind the gouge to fit your style of turning rather than fit your style to any particular angle of grind. Not an expert, but my 2 cents.

[Brian Novotny]

You can also experiment and if you have a tendency to use a bowl gouge a certain way it is possible for you to find a grind that perfectly matches that. I use an offeset clewes/ellsworth type grind, but with much sharper wings (I like to remove wood fast). my nose is ground more to a circular point at 50 degreees, which allows me to use a push cut, and it's blended into the wings that are about 22.5 degrees. With green wood I can just about romove almost 1/2" a pass, and with the big difference between the wings and the nose it makes for a more versatle tool that has more cutting edges IMO, which means less sharpening.

[Mark Levitski]

Don, ditto to the comment that effortlessness comes with practice. The more bowls you turn, the more comfortable and easy it will be. Could be nothing at all wrong with the sharpness of your gouge or its bevel angle.

The various bowl gouge angles can affect how your handle gets in the way of your work or how comfortable it will feel reaching across your lathe bed to accomplish a certain cut (on cuts where you will be keeping the bevel rubbing anyway). Ellsworth explains some of this in his book, and he even describes an 85 degree bevel for coming across the bottom of bowls more easily. To make the first entry cut at the rim to begin hollowing a bowl would be easier with a 40 degree angle so your handle doesn't wind up on the extreme opposite side of your lathe bed as it would with the 85 degree gouge. A lot of turners have a few different-angled gouges at their disposal for different pieces or for different parts of their work. The 60 degree bevel is one of the more versatile.

[Brian Novotny]

yeah, D.E. told me that he wouldn''t grind at 50 degrees because of the lack of versatilty at the bottom of deep bowls.......Now alot of The Masters like ellsworth grind their gouges a certain way so they are more student friendly, I think that there would be slight variations if the grind was just for themselves.

I also think that your confidence going into a cut is a maker or breaker. If you don't have the confidence the wood will work you. I always called it "in the zone", Ellsworth calls it muscle memory, but I think that idea applies to grinding as much as your cuts........ I think confidence in your cuts is key as since I've gained confidence. I don't think that my confidence came until I found my own personal grinds for each of my tools. I almost threw out my crown roughing gouge until I put a steeper grind on it. I think that I would have a really hard time using any grinds straight out of the box....except for most of the signature grinds......I'm not even sure that I could turn a bowl with a traditional ground bowl gouge. I also think that not using grinding jigs adds to your confidence, they're kind of like a "one size fit's all" suit...IMO. If you can confidently grind your own gouges you're going to be much more confident with the blank.

[Jeff Farris]

What makes turning effortless is a keen edge where the bevel angle meets the flute (regardless of what that angle is) and one other key element. That second element is learning the feel of riding the bevel. It can't be taught in a lecture. It can barely be seen watching someone else turn. Even with a master standing at your elbow, it's difficult to grasp. It just takes time and a commitment to learn it.

ABC

Anchor (tool on the tool rest)

Bevel (heel of the bevel on the workpiece with the edge away from the workpiece)

Contact (slowly raise the angle until shavings start coming off and then hold that angle).

Watch the best. They do it the same way every time. The more you do it the less time it takes to go from B to C, but virtually every serious turner applies the tool that way for every cut that they make.

If you're not riding the bevel, you're scraping. Now at some point that is the right thing to do, but that's a discussion for a different day. Addressing specifically the original post, there is no magic angle. The magic is in learning to take whatever angle you have and riding it.

[Brian Novotny]

[Brian Greb]

The magic angle for a gouge is the one you put on it to give you beautiful curls... ...Effortless turning comes from practice and experimentation... If you don't practice and build muscle memory it will never be effortless. Tool grinds while important are only part of the equation.

According to David Marks you should start out around 40 to 50 degrees and adjust the bevel to match your personal style or the project at hand... he also pointed out he recommends a secondary grind to knock the heal off.

Personally I sharpen free hand and all of my gouges have a different bevel. They range from 44.5 to 58 degrees... I do have one odd ball gouge though it has a primary grind of 67 and a secondary grind at 52 I use this on HF pieces. My angles are approximate, I don't make it a practice to check my grinding with a protractor.

"Listen to what the tools and the wood tell you the rest will come"

"Books, magazine articles, and the rules are just starting points... personal experience trumps all else."

"Wood working should be a journey not a destination, goals are good, rules guide, but the finish is only the end of and adventure... so relax and enjoy!"
Just some quotes I like.

[Reed Gray]

I would swear my Thompson gouges were at about 45 degrees. I have them a bit more blunt than that, but I never measure. 45 is a good utility angle, suitable for more shallow and smaller bowls. If you want to make a rim to bottom cut on the inside, especially on deeper and bigger bowls where the rim of the bowl and the tool rest can get in the way of your handle, you need a more blunt angle, especially to get through the transition area. I do have one that is about 75 to 80 degrees, the same bevel angle of my scrapers. It is specifically for going across the bottoms of deep bowls.

Getting beautiful shavings is more about sharpness that angle. I can get beautiful shaving with my scrapers.

"If you're not riding the bevel, you are scraping." Not so, at least to my definition of scraping. If you have the cutting edge at a shear angle (45 degrees or more) you are shear cutting. This is a nice clean slicing cut which can be done with scrapers and gouges. It can be done rubbing the bevel, or without rubbing. It can be done with or without a burr.

robo hippy

[Jeff Farris]

...

"If you're not riding the bevel, you are scraping." Not so, at least to my definition of scraping. If you have the cutting edge at a shear angle (45 degrees or more) you are shear cutting. This is a nice clean slicing cut which can be done with scrapers and gouges. It can be done rubbing the bevel, or without rubbing. It can be done with or without a burr.

robo hippy

We're getting into semantics here, but as I understand the terms, if the bevel is not in contact, you're scraping. That is not to say that you're making a bad cut. I finish the outside of all my bowls with a shear scrape. The word "scrape" has been giving a bad rep because it is used to describe a common mistake. With the right edge, used in the right way, done for the right reason, scraping delivers incredible shavings and a beautiful finish.

[Don Geiger]

Dear Fellow woodturners:

I have had a great deal of exposure to the application of the bowl gouge having been a student of Ellsworth's twice and having assisted him with numerous week-long classes at Arrowmont. I have also taken classes and assisted many of the top named pros. I would like to share with you what I have learned.

A properly shaped tool that has a 60 degree grind at the tip has a great deal of utility and will enable you turn the inside and outside of most open forms and the outside of all (I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've never run into one) hollow forms. When you see someone turning a bowl with a gouge that has a 40 or 45 degree angle, you will usually see them change to a steeper angled gouge, particularly when they work on the inside of the bowl. This is necessary because maintaining bevel contact is critical.
A 60 degree angled bowl gouge can be very effectively used throughout the entire process in many more cases. I have about 15 bowl gouges in my shop. All but two of them have 60 degree angled tips. Of the two remaining gouges, one has a micro-bevel at 70 degrees and another has an 85 degree angle and is swept back only on the left side. I resort to these two gouges only when the shape of the inside of my bowl dictates that I can not maintain bevel contact with a 60 degree gouge.

For these reasons, I supply gauges and instructions with my Vertical Solution sharpening system to set up a 60 degree angle. One can easily vary the angle, but 60 degrees is what I recommend. I've sold over 1,400 systems with no complaints.

Don Geiger

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Sorry about some misinformation. I mentioned that the Thompsons, when I got them I thought they were 65 dgrees. That was an error.

My Tormek protrusion is 65 mm and jig setting is 4, which all translates into the Thompson gouge angle being somewhere around 55 degrees. So the Thompson grinds are closer to 55 degrees rather than 65.

I apologize about my bad info........