Originally Posted by
Roger Bullock
I learned a long time ago that when you buy a cheap tool, you pay for it twice. Once when you buy it and again when you replace it with the good tool. Save yourself some money now by going ahead and spending the extra 15 or 20 bucks and get the good tools. Just purchased the Thompson 1/2 V-gouge. Awesome tool and a joy to work with. His website has good information on maintaining the edge. Read his Q & A page.
Roger, while I agree with you in part, you are forgetting something important.
When you are first learning to turn, you are also learning to sharpen. Which means grinding off steel, sometimes lots of it, learning to get the right shape
Which makes more sense, wasting expensive steel, or cheap steel
(I own BB gouges, and reccomend them, but they are in no way as good a steel as my better tools)
Making sawdust mostly, sometimes I get something else, but that is more by accident then design.