replacement carbide cutters and ID-ing this plywood w/ pics

[bradleyheathhays]

Hey everybody. I got this cheap 3 piece carbide tool set off Amazon and now I'm ready to upgrade to something with negative rake. Are there negative rake replacement carbide cutters for my set or will I have to go with a whole new set that's specifically negative rake?

Also, I'm trying to find plywood similar to what's in the picture below but so far I haven't been able to find anything similar. The picture is of the side of a vase that a guy in Germany made, so who knows what stuff is available over there. As it's only the sides of the plywood that shows that's the only surface I'm interested in. I can find sheets of 3/4" baltic birch with 11 thin layers and poplar and others with much larger middle layers, just nothing with these middle size layers. I'm all ears on where to find something like this. I'm fairly sure it's 3/4".

Thanks.

 

[randyrls]

Brad; Negative rake carbide is intended to catch woodturners, not cut wood! Just use your normal set but below center. The further below center you go the more aggressive and the more stress put on the work piece. This applies to spindles, not inside bowls. I sharpen my carbide bits with a diamond credit card hone. I had to replace a "many years old" bit last year. It wasn't dull, it was just getting too thin! It is also difficult to sharpen negative rake bits.

European standards for plywood are different than in the US. They tend to not have voids or cracks inside the plywood. You likely will have to order this on-line. Big Box stores will have crap with voids and cracks on the inside plys. With todays breakdown in supply and demand, you may have a hard time finding what you are looking for.

The only place where negative rake is a good thing is on the inside of bowls. There you always want to be above center. A catch below center drives the bit into the wood making the catch worse. But a HSS negative rake scraper works wonders and is easy to sharpen.

 

[monophoto]

Brad

Negative rake is an innovation in the design of tools that emulates something that wood turners have long known - scrapers are best used with the handle held high so that the cutter approaches the wood at a slightly negative angle. As Randy says, you don't need special cutters to achieve a negative rake. However, having negative rake cutters allows you to be a bit more careless in the way you handle your tools.

But to answer your question, yes you can replace your existing flat cutters with negative rake carbide cutters. Just search for 'negative rake carbide cutters for woodturning' on Amazon. You will notice that they tend to be branded with the name of a very well known tool supplier and therefore more expensive than the generic flat cutters.

As to the plywood, you can buy high quality imported 'baltic birch' plywood from specialty lumber dealers. This material is produced in Scandanavia and several of the Baltic countries. It's normally quite expensive, and only carried by specialty lumber dealers. Russia has been a main producer, so the embargo on Russian products probably means that the supply is even more limited and the price higher than normal. The stuff sold in Home Despot, Lowes, etc is domestic made is fine for cabinetry, jigs and other 'flat work', but may not be ideal for turning.

 

[leehljp]

Randy: Just use your normal set but below center. The further below center you go the more aggressive and the more stress put on the work piece.

Louie: Negative rake is an innovation in the design of tools that emulates something that wood turners have long known - scrapers are best used with the handle held high so that the cutter approaches the wood at a slightly negative angle.

Randy, Louie, thanks for your response. I asked this same question way back when negative rake was taking over as the latest thing - Me: "Can't you just tilt your normal blade down below the center line and achieve the same thing?" The answer from an "engineer" was a resounding no. And the explanation was way off the mark.

But, I have been doing this very thing for years on pens in certain situations and achieving good results too.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[monophoto]

A professional production turner for whom I have a lot of respect is Richard Findley. A while back, he addressed this issue in a YouTube video. His bottom line was that the advantage that a negative rake scraper has over a conventional scraper is that it does not require that the user be as careful about how the cutting edge of the tool is aligned with the face of the wood. With any scraper (and carbide tools are scrapers), the cutting edge must be pointed slightly downward as it approaches the wood - if it is pointed upward, the edge can grab the wood and cause a catch. It can be a challenge to maintain proper orientation of the cutting edge, especially if the turning has a curved surface and the tool must be continuously reoriented to achieve a smooth curve along that surface. With a conventional scraper, you have to constantly be aware of the position of the tool handle. But with a negative rake tool, just about any handle position is fine because the cutting edge itself is angled downward.

There are those who would argue that negative rake scrapers are 'better' because the included angle between the bevel below the edge, and the surface above the edge, is more optimum. Frankly, that's BS - the included angle is irrelevant. What matters is that there is an edge with a burr.

 

[leehljp]

While I used wood as an example, my usage was self learned (trial, error and feedback experience), I found its better use (for me) was in certain resin types.

Brad, yes the negative rake carbide blades should fit in your set. But this thread brings to mind - some individual tools have a negative rake ground into the mounting profiled rod/square bars. While it is not necessary for the mount itself to have negative machining, it might help if one is used to this, and reading Louie's posts above, it probably makes it easier to use with less fuss than using a normal level cutter angled downward by the user. The short answer is probably it will help one get up to speed (usability) faster - than learning with a straight cutter angled downward and not having much experience.

To me, I do use carbide cutters some but use HSS the most - because I was experienced in sharpening and like very sharp tools, something most new turners don't think about or know how to do. BUT Carbide cutters eliminate the moderate learning experience to good sharpening and brings new people up to pen making speed much faster. I used to be against carbide cutters, but realized how much easier it was for new guys to get up to speed in making pens. And new guys don't know design limits and think outside the box often. I love the creativity that relatively new guys have.

You have a good thread here.

One question, what is the red thing with brown/black bar in your picture?

 

[monophoto]

One question, what is the red thing with brown/black bar in your picture?

Hank - those are Allen wrenches that match the screws holding the carbide cutters onto the bars/handles.

I know that there was a manufacturer of carbide tools in England who put a slight negative slope on the end of the bar to cause tools with flat-top cutters to behave as negative rake tools. But those were expensive tools - Brad described his tools as 'cheap' so I would not expect they would have that feature. A quick check of Amazon shows two Yufutol tool sets that include round, radiused square, and diamond cutters on no-name wooden handles, and Allen wrenches with red handles that look similar to Brad's picture. One set has square bars, while the other has round bars. In both cases, the cutters appear to be aligned with the axis of the handle bar rather than angled.

 

[sbwertz]

Spectraply may work for you

SpectraPly Turning Blanks

Add some color and fun to your lathe with SpectraPly! SpectraPly is a premium grade dyed birch veneer laminate made right here in the USA. CWP is providing woodturners with an eco-friendly project blank made to last!

www.cwp-usa.com

 

[bradleyheathhays]

Thanks for all the discussion and suggestions. Definitely have to give SpectraPly some going over and see what ideas I can come up with!

I've decided to upgrade myself to the full size 24.5" 3 piece NR carbide tool set from Easy Wood, or there equivalent thereof. Only thing is you have to buy the NR cutters in ADDITION to the tool set, pushing the grand total up to somewhere in the $425 range.

Can anyone suggest a good 3 piece NR carbide tool set equivalent to the 24" Easy Wood set that comes in under $425?

 

[wimkluck]

Thanks for all the discussion and suggestions. Definitely have to give SpectraPly some going over and see what ideas I can come up with!

I've decided to upgrade myself to the full size 24.5" 3 piece NR carbide tool set from Easy Wood, or there equivalent thereof. Only thing is you have to buy the NR cutters in ADDITION to the tool set, pushing the grand total up to somewhere in the $425 range.

Can anyone suggest a good 3 piece NR carbide tool set equivalent to the 24" Easy Wood set that comes in under $425?

Blackline 5 tlg. Carbide Set mit Moly Griff in Lederhülle

Set beinhaltet: 1 x Moly Drechselmesser Griff 1 x Carbide Schaft mit Schneide in runder Form 1 x Carbide Schaft mit Schneide in…

www.drechselbedarf-schulte.de

Sets – BlackLine Tool Company

blacklinetool.co.za

 

[sbwertz]

My husband made tools for me and for the blind center from half inch square stainless steel stock and I turned the handles.

 

[bradleyheathhays]

Thanks for the hookup wimkluck. I took a year of German in college; wish I remembered enough of it for their website.

Nice to have that personal touch on your tools sbwertz, very cool.

 

[penicillin]

Negative rake carbide cutters were patented by Easy Wood Tools a few years ago. They fit in Easy Wood Tools turning tools. To the best of my knowledge:

• Easy Wood Tools has not licensed the patent to anyone else.
• Easy Wood Tools is the only maker of negative rake carbide cutters.
• In general, the Easy Wood Tools negative rake carbide cutters do not fit in other brands of tools.
  • Feel free to try them in the other brands for yourself.
  • You may be able to make them fit, but you may not have tightly conforming support on the tool side of the cutter, opposite from the cutting edge.
  • If you find a tool where they fit well, let everyone know.

You can re-sharpen standard carbide tips by flattening the backs on a flat diamond stone. Few people have the tooling necessary to re-sharpen negative rake cutters.

I use both carbide and high speed steel (HSS) turning tools. Like @leehljp, I prefer to use the HSS tools more than the carbide.

Everybody thinks of the standard flat back carbide turning tools as only scrapers. I say that you should give them a try in bevel rubbing mode as if they were HSS tools. You may be pleasantly surprised if you see ribbons coming off the workpiece and leaving a decent smooth cut. This trick won't work with the negative rake cutters - they are scrapers.

I keep hoping that someday Bradley will share a photo of a pen or something else he has turned.

- - - - -

Tormek makes a special jig for sharpening turning tool tips. The Tormek jig may be the only tool that can sharpen the bevel on a carbide cutter and not just flatten the back. The rumor mill says that it can sharpen negative rake cutters, but I have given up trying to find a reference to cite. Tormek means very expensive tooling - the Tormek grinder, the Tormek diamond wheel, and the special Tormek 186 R jig can add up to a lot of money.

My experience with wet grinders and HSS turning tools has not been good. They are extremely slow, and it is difficult to achieve exact bevel matches for re-sharpening. If you don't match the bevel exactly, you may be condemned to hours of regrinding the bevels on your turning tools. My next sharpening setup will be a slow speed grinder, CBN wheels that include a flat side, and some type of jig (e.g., Wolverine).