gouges and tools too aggressive after sharpening

[allenworsham]

I haven't been turning too long, so I bought a fairly cheap set from Rockler when I got my Jet Mini.I had been sharpening them by hand using files following the set grind and did fine. Yesterday I bought the Wolverine Sharpening System made by Oneway Manufacturing while watching a bowl turning demo at Rockler put on by a local woodturing club. One of the guys in the club who was turning went over to sharpen his tools on a Wolverine, so I he showed me how it all worked. Ok, looked easy enough. The problem is that when I went home and sharpended my gouges, they are so aggressive that I had two acrylic blanks blow out and I was using real soft pressure.I was told to go about 40-50 degrees with the grind, so I set it at 45 degrees and off I went. What angle would be best for my gouges and spindlemaster for acrylics?

 

[mwenman]

Originally posted by allenworsham

I haven't been turning too long, so I bought a fairly cheap set from Rockler when I got my Jet Mini.I had been sharpening them by hand using files following the set grind and did fine. Yesterday I bought the Wolverine Sharpening System made by Oneway Manufacturing while watching a bowl turning demo at Rockler put on by a local woodturing club. One of the guys in the club who was turning went over to sharpen his tools on a Wolverine, so I he showed me how it all worked. Ok, looked easy enough. The problem is that when I went home and sharpended my gouges, they are so aggressive that I had two acrylic blanks blow out and I was using real soft pressure.I was told to go about 40-50 degrees with the grind, so I set it at 45 degrees and off I went. What angle would be best for my gouges and spindlemaster for acrylics?

use a round nose scraper to round them out then finish off with a skew.

 

[Aderhammer]

Did u deburr the edges? Does it feel like the edge is catching and being sucked in to the project, if so u need to deburr ur tools.

 

[Rmartin]

I have to agree, I haven't had a blow out since I put my gouge away. I use a round nosed scrapper and a skew.

 

[IPD_Mrs]

Got to agree with Andrew. You should deburr and if you can strop it that will really help. If you are getting catches and blowing out the blank then best guess the edge, although sharp is not even.

Mike

 

[rherrell]

I use the Spindlemaster all the time and love it, but you asked "what angle" to grind it and the answer is NONE. The reason I love it is because I DON"T have to grind it. I keep a diamond stone at my lathe and touch it up when necessary. Just hold it flat on the stone and go back and forth a few times. I never touch the curved under side.

 

[Rudy Vey]

Acrylic blanks need a very light touch even with sharp tools. Carefully round the blank over with a spindle gouge, then go to a skew.

 

[Rifleman1776]

It's a matter of experience. Soon, you will not have this problem. As far as 'deburring', don't worry about it. A turning tool 'deburrs' about two seconds after you start using it.

 

[TellicoTurning]

After watching Ed's demo at the Midwest Penturners Gathering last year, on the plastics I pretty much start and finish with a skew. Sometimes I will round over with the round nose scraper, but just get corners off before switching to the skew... it must be sharp and use light touches.

 

[marionquill]

Sounds like you have plenty of advice already but I'll throw my two cents in - I use sharpening stones on my gouges, scrapers and other tools - on a fresh sharpening, the gouge is extremly aggressive on acrylics. I only use it to get most of the edges off; once all the flat edges are off, I switch to a round nose scraper. After I get the shape I want and it's basically finished, I'll use a skew to line up with the bushings. You can use a gouge for the whole turning process, however, you never know when it's going to grab your blank and rip a big hunk off...

 

[KenV]

I will try to add some fresh insight -- part of the "agression" is probably that you are not accustomed to having a fresh ground edge. Assuming that you have high speed steel, you have not been doing much sharpening with "files". The coarse or fine nature of your wheels makes a difference too. John Jordan uses just 60 grit which gives a fairly rough edge. On large bowls, makes little differrence. Bonnie Klein uses 120 grit finish wheels and she is a small item pro.

Wolverine is well known for the side grind bowl gouge, that also grinds a long fingernail shape on a spindle gouge. It is easy to get away from the nose and onto the long sides and be taking agressive cuts. If 9 oclock has the "U" facing to the left and 3 oclock has the "u" facing to the right, look to be working near the tip and keeping the "U" at either 10 or 2 oclock. get the bevel rubbing and lightly lift the tool. Lightly slide it down the tool rest and let the tool do the work. No forcing it-- just the finger tip pressure along the rest.

Grab some cheap practice stock and practice for 1/2 hour before you invest in expensive materials is another way to make cheap errors.

 

[allenworsham]

Follow up:

I did some more research and talked to a guy who heads up a local wood turners club in my area and works at Rockler. He was very informative and helpful. The issue is that the tools were only marginally sharp to begin with, but now they are truly sharp. So it wasn't my grind as it was done properly. The tools that I have are carbon steel and not HSS, so the quality is fair at best. So I decided to pick up a couple of Sorby's at Rockler. They are having a sale until 2/08/08 where you buy 1 and the 2nd that is equal or lessor in value for 1/2 price. So at $60 a pop for a chisel, that's pretty significant. So I picked up a spindle gouge and a spindlemaster. I will head back later and get a round nose scraper and a skew. Anyhow, I tried out the tools on some maple blanks, and they did great. The spindlemaster was awesome and it came out completly smooth before I started sanding. Then I put in some acrylic blanks, and used my old gouge to round it and then went to the spindlemaster to finish it like I did the wood. Even using soft hands, I ended up shattering one of the blanks as I got near final shape. I then did the other blank and used the skews (1" and 1/2") instead of the spindlemaster. That did good and left the blank in good shape. So it looks like I have to start using the gouge for turning them round and then use the skew to finish them off. Since I have not had much experience with the skew, it will be a learning curve.

Thanks for all the advice. It was very helpful.