I turn a ton of these and everything everyone here has said is accurate in regard to the speed, sharp tools, light cuts, etc...
I will be even more specific.
I turn at no less than 1850rpm. Mostly 2200rpm or so.
I use a 3/4" roughing gouge held sideways on the tool rest and used like a skew. I let the edge slice away the material. The round edged gouge doesn't require near the profficiency that a corrctly used skew does and is almost completely forgiving. It is important that you get a little starting edge going and then push or pull the tool evenly and consistently across the blank without changing the angle of the tool.
I now have gone to a spindle gouge with a fingernail grind with fairly large wings and I find that I can be more aggresive with the initial shapping.
Once down to almost final diameter, I will use a 1" skew as a scrapper and take off wisps of the material as I run it up and down the blank to take off any tool ridges and adjust the ends down to the bushings.
Then I slow the lathe to 600rpm and wet sand starting with 400 and then 600, 1000, 1500 and finally buffing with Meguire's swirl remover car wax.
I'll try to make a video this week and get it posted on my website.
