Gouge impared

[Chasper]

I just read a thread about pen turning tools and decided it was time to attempt to understand which gouge is which; something everyone else seems to have learned in elementary school. I checked some sellers sites I can see that a bowl gouge has the cutting edges tapered back toward the handle, but I can't see a difference between a roughing gouge and a spindle gouge. Somebody clarify that please.

I don't really have a good reason to know this, I've just been wordering what some of these tools I've had lying around for years are called and what they are used for. I use my bowl gouge to reach over my lathe and push on/off button on my dust collector, I can't remember every using it for anything else. I'm a 3/4 oval skew user 90% of the time and an occasional round nose scraper and parting tool user the rest of the time.

 

[Dario]

This might help you

http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/

Go to "Product Lines" at left
"Woodturning Tools"
"Gouges"

Shows all the profile for your reference.

 

[marcruby]

The big differences between roughing and bowl gouges are in how they are made. Think of a roughing gouge as a sheet of metal, bent half round with one edge sharpened and a tang ground into the other end. The key structural differences are that the sides are too high for working inside a bowl and the tang is a glaring weak point. If a roughing gouge catches - and it will on a bowl - it will get slammed down on the tool post and likely bend or break at the tang. If it breaks it doesnt just stop and fall to the ground. It has a habit of firing off in an unexpected direction.

Now both a spindle and a bowl bowl gouge are basically rods of metal with a v or round groove machined into it for about 6". The end of this groove is sharpened either straight across or, most often, swept back in an Irish or 'Elwood' grind. The spindle gouge is shallower that the bowl gouge. The factors here are that the sides of the cutting edge are low - easy to maneuver inside the bowl or in a cove or bead - and for the size of the tool there is a lot if metal. Unless you do something crazy catches will damage the work, but not your fingers or face.

Marc

 

[VisExp]

To add to what Marc said about the roughing gouge. A more correct term would be to refer to it as a spindle roughing gouge. It is designed to be used on spindle work (where the grain runs parallel to the lathe bed) and not to be used for face work (where the grain runs perpendicular to the lathe bed i.e bowls)