What's you favorite Bowl gouge?

[Kent Cori]

Another vote for the Ellsworth Signature gouge. Like Jim, I use it for almost everything when turning a bowl. I do use a nice Richard Raffan designed and Henry Taylor made scraper for making the final cuts in the interior.

[Bob Oswin]

Bob, I'd recommend you stick with the HHS or similar. The carbon steel isn't just an issue with trips to the grinder, it's terribly easy to ruin the tool by overheating when sharpening as you loose temper at a very low temperature. That makes for "really" soft steel that will not hold an edge even if you just look at it.

Any of the deep fluted gouges with an Irish or similar grind will give you the ability to do the shearing cuts you want on difficult materials...it's totally amazing the finish you can get right off the tool when you do this carefully. Additionally, these grinds are also great for hollowing bowls in the same circumstances as it's easy to "dial in" anything from a delicate to a very aggressive cut by just rotating the tip as you sweep through the contour of the bowl. Again, the finishing cut you can get, even on difficult wood is very impressive. I very rarely use scrapers on the inside of bowls due to this capability.

Just what I wanted to hear! I'm sure you know how a mind can play tricks on you?

Thanks Jim!
Bob

[Steve Inniss]

From Paul, new to the wood turnery world.
Jim, could you perhaps give us a sketch or picture of this "Irish grind". Or maybe a referance to a picture on the web. Seeing as I'm 100% Irish I figure to check this out. I have done a fair amount of tool grinding in the industrial world, so I understand much of the technical terms, this one has escaped me some how....Thanks

Paul,
I am not familiar with an "Irish" grind, but I have heard of an O'Donnell grind, which certainly could be called Irish. You could probably find this on Google. -Steve

[Jim Becker]

Paul,
I am not familiar with an "Irish" grind, but I have heard of an O'Donnell grind, which certainly could be called Irish. You could probably find this on Google. -Steve

This should be helpful..."Irish grind" is sometimes used beyond a specific configuration...in that respect, the Ellsworth grind is "very similar"...

http://www.peterchild.co.uk/info1/sflute.htm

[Bob Oswin]

Bob, I'd recommend you stick with the HHS or similar. The carbon steel isn't just an issue with trips to the grinder, it's terribly easy to ruin the tool by overheating when sharpening as you loose temper at a very low temperature. That makes for "really" soft steel that will not hold an edge even if you just look at it.

Any of the deep fluted gouges with an Irish or similar grind will give you the ability to do the shearing cuts you want on difficult materials...it's totally amazing the finish you can get right off the tool when you do this carefully. Additionally, these grinds are also great for hollowing bowls in the same circumstances as it's easy to "dial in" anything from a delicate to a very aggressive cut by just rotating the tip as you sweep through the contour of the bowl. Again, the finishing cut you can get, even on difficult wood is very impressive. I very rarely use scrapers on the inside of bowls due to this capability.

That's exactly what I am after Jim.

I figure a guy should be able to cut the inside of a bowl to about 150 to 180 grit if his tools are right.
I have no problem with short stuff but need a bit of direction for the deeper cuts.
I figure I will be quite happy with a 5/8" HSS gouge with a decent extension from the handle.

Thanks
Bob

[Jim Becker]

Bob, the key is to practice the inside cuts over and over. Ellsworth has one do it with only the right hand as an exercise in his seminar. This is both for tool control and body posture/balance. Doing it one-handed is scary at first, but after awhile you realize that if you present the tool properly and let it sweep through the cut, you can hollow a bowl very nicely almost with your eyes closed and one hand behind your back ...well, not quite that easy, but it is a "habit" type action that practice helps a lot with. I don't do it enough, frankly, and that's one of the reasons that most of the stuff I've done recently (not much, unfortunately) have been bowl type projects. I really need the exercise. With the new lathe, I need to do this a little more for awhile as I choose to set the spindle height a little higher than I had before, so the body posture is slightly different.