Robert Sorby's "Turnmaster" tool

[Donny Lawson]

I was wondering if anyone has bought and tried this tool and your thoughts on it? I know it comes with 3 different cutter heads and I need some input before I make my decision to buy one.I think the round cutter head would work great for the inside. Thanks. I'm looking for a faster and better way to rough out bowls. It seems to take too long on the inside of a bowl. Maybe I'm just getting slow.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

You've been turning a long time or at least posting a long time. You probably have a lot of rough outs under your belt. You're not getting slow, Donny. Just more impatient like the rest of us. As long as you have a solid piece of wood properly secured in the chuck and your tools are sharp, turn it up a bit and let it rip. A good sharp 5/8" bowl gouge will hollow a bowl in short order. Of course, if you are turning 18" bowls, coring smaller ones out of the middle saves time, wood and cleanup.
faust

[John RStegall]

I have one and it is no faster for roughing out bowls, might even be slower. I would not buy one today. It looked great in the video (can you say impulse buy?), but is just not any faster. My 2€

[Bernie Weishapl]

Donny I don't think other than coring out bowls anything would be faster than a good sharp bowl gouge. Now I know Robo Hippy will disagree as he can hollow out a bowl with a scraper in short order. I used my monster tool attachment in a handle like the Sorby you are looking at on a bowl. It is actually in my mind slower as John said. Just getting impatient Donny. I think we all get there at some time.

[Reed Gray]

Well, Bernie is mostly right. I can hollow out a bowl form with my scrapers faster than most people can with a gouge. Probably the main reason is lots of practice/experience. The speed comes from several things. RPM: the faster the piece spins, the more bulk you can remove in a shorter time. Torque: The more horses your lathe has, the more bulk you can remove in a pass, and the more steel you can put into the wood for one pass. SAFETY NOTE: High speed has a much higher risk factor, use extreme caution, stand out of the line of fire, and don't turn at high speeds with any wood that is not solid or has ANY defects! Other than that, I think the only real advantage to a scraper when hollowing out a bowl, or forming the outside, the tool never comes off the wood: push/pull. With a gouge, you start at the top, push to the bottom, lift the tool off the wood, come back to the top. For me, roughing doesn't have to look pretty, but you want to get the shape refined, then use the gouge for a finish cut, or scrapers can do the job at a shear angle.

Now, to the Turnmaster. They are scrapers. Nothing more. There is not one single thing you can do with them that can't be done with standard scrapers. They do have smaller cutting tips than some scrapers, and tend to be on square stock, but some are on round stock, but still have small cutters. This does make them easier to control. A piece of tangung (cast metal, very hard) silver soldered onto bar stock can do the exact same things. Known as the Big Ugly tool, used by the coastal myrtle/california bay laurel which is abrasive, and dulls your tools quickly. Probably cheaper 6 inch by 1/8 inch by 3/4 wide about $45), cuts almost as long as carbide, and easy to sharpen.

robo hippy

[Donny Lawson]

Thanks for some input. I am more impatient lately. I use a 1/2" RS gouge now and I was roughing out a nice 14" walnut bowl the other day and it seemed to take forever. I was thinking the round cutter tool would be a little faster, and instead of paying alot more for the Easy wood tools I could buy 1 Turnmaster and get 3 tools in one.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Donny,
A half inch gouge for a 14" bowl is like sending a boy to do a man's job. Time for a parabolic shaped 5/8" gouge.
faust

[mark ravensdale]

Donny, I actually have this tool and to be honest it is the most crap tool I ever bought, now don't get me wronge it is very well built but the problem is that the cutters are just too small, it just does not seem to cut cleanly, I have tried it with all three different cutter (carbide, hss, and tin coated hss) but it doesn't matter, I cannot recommend this tool to anyone,
if you are after a good scraper the one I can recommend is the multi axis shear scraper from Mcnaughton, now this tool really does do the business (normal scraping, shear scraping, whatever you want) and the cutting edge stays sharp for longer than any other scraper I have come across, it really is a fantastic tool!!!

[Reed Gray]

I can still remember when a 10 inch bowl would take me 45 to 60 minutes to turn. Now, it is less than 5. Experience. A 14 by 6 inch bowl blank, if I wasn't coring, well, I don't know. Coring, 3 bowls total as I don't go for the last little one, a set that size, and finish turning would be 45 to 50 minutes. More horse power, more torque, higher speeds, and thousands of bowls. A 1/2 inch tool is a bit small, but I prefer the bigger heavier ones, as they just fit my hands better.

Mark, I did look at Kel's multiaxis scraper tool in Minneapolis. While it looked interesting, I, again, couldn't see it doing anything that I couldn't do with conventional scrapers. I am not sure about the edge holding properties. I am not sure if he used his thin hard metal veneer on it like he does on his coring blades. That would be better than standard HSS.

robo hippy

[mark ravensdale]

Robo, I do believe it is the same metal as he uses on his coring and hollowing tools, it really does hold an edge really well, the only down point to this tool is its size, it's pretty big and as such is hard to use on smaller work!
as for the turnmaster all I can do is to NOT recommend this tool, and that's coming from a real fan of Robert sorby tools!

[Glen Blanchard]

My wife bought the Turnmaster for me for Christmas as it was on my list. I returned it to Woodcraft a few weeks later. Mark is correct - it's pretty big. I just never got the hang of it I guess.