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It is …for some hobbyists, and anyone who scrapes ,instead of cutting, I worked for
a turner who who could cover a floor with long spiral wood ‘springs’. He even had some
customers who told him to NOT SAND ! , I’ve seen old good quality turnings that showed
no signs of any sanding.
Last edited by Mel Fulks; 04-15-2023 at 2:39 AM.
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When we talk about generic carbide tools, we are missing some things. Depending on how it is produced and heat treated, the carbide grain size can be all over the place and we never really know. I think powdered metallurgy tools are probably better for some uses.
I
The same goes for steels like A2. It is a complicated steel to heat treated and requires great care too properly. You can get a WIDE range of properties from A2 depending on the heat treatment. Steels such as O1 or 1095 are very easy to heat treat.
[OP]
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Woodturning involves scraping, cutting and sometimes in between depending on the tool and technique used. You might say that woodturners "ride the bevel" with a gouge with a supported cut in much the same way that the sole of a plane supports a cut to give a smooth finish that may not require sanding. All of the carbide tools in woodturning up until the nanograin carbide tool offered by Jamieson and others I believe were more for scraping. They were easy to use and didn't require sharpening but the finish was not the most desirable. The nanograin carbide cutter is brought into the wood at an angle and because it is very sharp will produce a much nicer slicing cut and finish. I have some of the nanograin carbide cutters but haven't used them yet so can't speak from experience. Others will have to chime in for that.Originally Posted by Jay Houghton
One way to think about it is not regarding the potential sharpness of HSS (compared to TC), but the real-world sharpness of it in real-world use. For machine blades the HSS may come out sharper than even high quality carbide, but for how many pieces of (for example) white oak? If you or your sharpening service can achieve razor sharp edges on HSS knives, I expect it will only be a few sticks of white oak before they are now the same sharpness as fresh, good quality carbide. You aren't going to replace those HSS knives at this point, you're going to carry on using them for some time and they will get duller and duller till they need replacing. The carbides will stay at an acceptable level of sharpness for some time. Now with hand tools where you can quickly rework the edge to razor sharp there may be an advantage to HSS if you are skilled and efficient at reworking the edge. For machine tools that can take time to swap knives carbide may make more sense. Teresa knives or similar for example that can be swapped easily may be the exception where any advantage of sharper HSS could be more easily leveraged.
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It's not only crystal size but also how it's sintered.
A crude analogy would be concrete.
At a 90 degree angle. it can last a long time taking lots of wear. If you lessen the angle to say, 70 degrees, it's more likely to chip when exposed to the same wear.
This is partly due to the particle size and the manufacturing processes we have now.
Until the particle size gets small enough (probably PICO) you can't get carbide to keep an acute angle, like a plane iron or chisel, without being too brittle to hold together.
Many carbide inserts have an angle of no more than 60 degrees, give or take, and rely on the installation angle in the tool to achieve the proper cutting angle to prolong their life.
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Maurice:
Sorry for getting off topic, but I wanted to address something about the Makita power planer that Maurice was talking about. The blades are ridiculously easy to change. They come with a little Delrin jig to screw the blade carriers to the blades. That automatically sets them to exactly the right height. I keep a toolbox with two of the 3-1/4" ones in. One for rough work, and one for clean work. The rough work one may get some chips in the knives but still works until I decide they're bad enough to change.
I keep a 9mm (if I'm remembering that correctly-check it before buying one) T-wrench in the toolbox with the planers that fits the bolts for blade carriers to head, and a screwdriver that fits the screws for carrier (or whatever it's called) to knives. Edited to add: also a cheap pair of scissors to open the new blade package. I can swap both knives in one in less than a minute total without getting in a hurry, and it goes right back to work like a new one.
Last edited by Tom M King; 04-15-2023 at 12:21 PM.
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Thanks Tom. The Makita sounds similar to the Ryobi. The blades are very similar but just different enough to be not interchangeable. Mine screw on to the chip-breaker / ejector with small screws in slots. I am at the end of my slots on both pairs of blades after 30 years of sharpening. The Ryobi came with a honing fixture.
Photo on 4-15-23 at 11.36 AM.jpg
Last edited by Maurice Mcmurry; 04-15-2023 at 12:39 PM.
Best Regards, Maurice
My large Makita beam planer uses a Tersa style (not true Tersa) knife and is pretty quick to swap out, though the Byrd replacement for it is pretty popular due to the frequency of road grit on delivered timbers. Here's a video I did on the big power planer:
https://youtu.be/p-woalcHZTQ
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Good stuff Brent. I haven’t needed smooth beams sine I built new houses. Anything the 6-3/4 couldn’t take care of, I walked them with a big floor drum sander that I also used on floors. Not the lightweight ones you get from rental places that you have to push down on the handle to raise, but a heavy one with a small handle for easing the drum up and down.
If you look up Thornhill Timberframes on Instagram, he built himself a "running planer" where the bed of a motor-on-top, off-shore, 4-poster 15" planer was replaced with about 40' of roller conveyor. He adjusts the heights, rolls the timber in and the stock feed rollers pull it through, flattening it too. He had custom posts made to gain the height he needs and also a turntable for th planer so he can rotate it 180deg and plane both directions. Very clever!
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Good stuff Brent. I haven’t needed smooth beams sine I built new houses. Anything the 6-3/4 couldn’t take care of, I walked them with a big floor drum sander that I also used on floors. Not the lightweight ones you get from rental places that you have to push down on the handle to raise, but a heavy one with a small handle for easing the drum up and down.
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Don’t know why that post was doubled. Not the best at posting from the phone
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There isn't really a lot of technological innovation in the wood shop. Seems like they've used carbide cutting edged on on the tools it makes sense on. Hand tools haven't changed much in hundreds of years. They seem to be a pretty mature technology. My guess is that we won't be seeing carbide in any truly new application any time soon.
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Can also go right past carbide to PCD on some things, they outlive carbide.
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