What skew to use?

[eskimo]

I've been using a 1/2" Oval skew for a couple of months and am still getting a lot of "catches", even with sharpening before each blank (and many times, again while on the same blank). Some of it is due to the type of wood, but I wonder if some of it may be that the skew is fairly light and I might have better success with a heavier 1" Skew (Christmas is coming and the LOL said a Bandsaw is out of the question).

I've read the articles and viewed the videos on this site and feel my method is pretty solid, as I will have 6 or 7 clean passes, then get a catch & take a chunk out of the blank.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[CrazyBear]

I used to use a scraper or gouge to take my blanks down. Now I use a 1" skew. The finish is far better and I feel more in control of the tool rather than the tool controling me.

I am probably doing it wrong but I usualy have the Skew blade vertical at about a 45 degree angle to the blank. This takes a nice even cut.

Having said that it was a Bi%*h to get used to and I have to make doubly sure there are no nicks in my tool rest to catch the skew.

I would personally recomend going for the bigger skew but other more experienced turners may differ

 

[rherrell]

You might have better results with a larger skew ,however, I use a 1/2" straight skew with no problems. All I can say is practice,practice,practice. And then do it some more!

 

[Rmartin]

I use a round nosed scrapper in conjunction with a straight skew, and about ten other turning tools. Many of my tools started out as one thing, and I used a grinder to shape them into something else.

 

[fernhills]

I use a 3/4 gouge,then 1/2 skew don`t need to sand go right to 400 600 and then to mm

 

[GBusardo]

I like to blame the wood [] Some of blanks give me way more trouble than others. I am quite sure eveyone has a catch or a blow out sometimes. Recently I was turning a Red Heart blank and everything was going fine, even better than normal. I must have gotten cocky cause it all went to hell with one huge blow out. To this day I have no clue what went wrong, I didn't feel a catch, the wood was coming off the skew in two or three inch long ribbons... A few curse words and I am reaching for the CA

 

[Firefyter-emt]

I turn like Hugh does, at about a 45 degree angle to slice the wood rather in a "hand plane" kind of approach. Just for kick, I tried it like the hand plane the other day and I hated it. I get nice little curlies my way and can even "fill" my lamp at the lathe with PR if I am truning plastic! (This is one reason I put a florescent bulb in it!)

Maybe you could try the 45 approach and see if it works for you. My 12 year old got the hand of it with a 1" skew after a few minutes of practice.

 

[Fred]

I have found that the skew is a great tool. Of course I have been using one for years and have a great respect for the end results. I especially like being able to skip several sanding grits since the blanks have been "scraped"

One thing I noticed in using the skew is that I have far better cutting results when turning at a much higher speed, say 2500 or on out to 3300 RPM. Of course one must address the edge of the tool to the wood with a great deal more care.

I use the 1" oval skew from Robert Sorby and keep the edge 'scary sharp.' I however do not address the wood at much more than a nice level edge across the tool rest. I changed the flat edge tool rest our several years ago and now use the 1" round tool rest. Catches on the tool rest are a thing of the past and the tool glides across under my control. Even my square edged tools handle far better on the round tool rest ... IMHO! []