Easy Rougher Review

I have had an easy rougher Ci1 for some time now. I made all the mistakes Ralph made but with a little experience I have found it to be the most useful tool I own. I can rough a bowl inside and out in less than half the time it takes me with a bowl gouge and I can get a reasonable finish that just needs a couple of passes with a scraper before sanding. But the biggest advantage as far as I am concerned is that I can use it without having to sway my body to get good results. For a disabled turner like me this is a major advantage.

I walked away so impressed I bought one for myself.

If you aren?t familiar with the tool, it?s made from a heavy bar (~1/2 inch) stock of 300 series stainless steel, with a large handle and a four sided carbide cutter. The tool is designed to be presented to the wood horizontal. While the cutting action is generally considered a ?scrape?, the sharpness of the carbide results in cutting large shavings off the wood. It also has an optional plastic shield.

So far I have tried it on two bowl blanks, both of these were cut to an octagon (i.e. 8 sided) by a chain saw. They were not band-sawed to almost round. The first blank was a piece of heavy wet Big Leaf Maple. The Maple was so wet I ended up with sap everywhere (see note below). The 2nd blank was dry Plum.

With both blanks I found that the Easy Rougher did its job, it knocked the corners off the wood and made the blank round. The big advantage the Easy Rougher has, over my big Bowl Gouge, is where the force from the roughing goes. With a Bowl Gouge, much of the force goes into the tool rest but the rest goes into your hands.

Since the Easy Rougher is presented to the wood level, most the force goes into the tool rest, not into your hands. Most of the force on your hands is the effort it takes to maintain the Easy Rougher as level. As a result, your hands see less force. This means less effort on the Turners part. This lower effort makes it easy for the Turner to do more, with less fatigue. It also means the Turners with various issues (Arthritis, etc) can do more turning.

I found I had to restrict the ?width? of the cut to less then ½ of the cutting edge, or I would stall my lathe. I also found I had to not feed too hard, or I would also stall the lathe. I noted that it was easier to ?over feed? this cutter then any of my Bowl Gouges.

I found that the optional shield is useful, when the blank is mostly round and rounder. It does help reduce the amount of shavings that go flying around the lathe, and all over the Turner. I did find that the shield is almost useless during the early part of ?knocking the corners off?. This is because the vibration is so great the shield is quickly vibrated off the tool. I could not get the screw on the shield tight enough, during this phase, to keep the shield on.

I did continue to use the Easy Rougher after the blank was completely rounded and ready to be turned into a bowl. At this point I started switching between using the Easy Rougher and my Bowl Gouges.

I found that if I did deep cuts with the Easy Rougher, there was considerably more tear-out then similar deep cuts with a Bowl Gouge. If I reduced the force the Easy Rougher would leave an acceptable rough turn finish.

I did find that the amount of effort it took for me to form the bowl to be similar between the Easy Rougher and a Bowl Gouge. However, consistently the Bowl Gouge gave a better finish.

I also found, that at least for my experience level with the Easy Rougher, it was easier for me to get a good shape on the bowl, with a Bowl Gouge then with the Easy Rougher. It might be that, with more experience, I could get a good form with the Easy Rougher, but I would still have to ?clean up? the cuts with a gouge or shear scraper.

One thing I noticed, at both Super Wednesday and the Utah Symposium the owner of Easy Tools was using a Tool Rest stop. That is a sleeve, on the shaft of the Tool Rest; the helps hold the Tool Rest at the specified height. The reason he does this is do to the force the Easy Rougher puts on the Tool Rest, I noticed that my Tool Rest tended to be forced down, during the roughing, no matter how much I tightened the handle. So now I need to make myself some stops (I?ve had that on my ?Round-To-It? list for some time anyway)

TTFN Ralph

Note: You do know that ?back when? they used to harvest sap from Big Leaf Maple for Maple Syrup, ask me how I know, and yes I was wearing a full face mask

Tom.. I've considered this tool, but one thing (besides the price) that turned me off is all the talk in the ad (and Ralph's excellent review) is the force directed to the rest... I think they say something like "Let your lathe take the punishment"?

Is this only part of the learning curve with this tool, or a constant?

My lathes are a major investment and I really hate to subject them to abuse, especially enough force to pound the tool rest down through a tightened banjo..

mac

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It still amazes me that those who are trying the Easy Rougher are so astounded by what it does. I have been using scrapers on bowls for years now as my primary roughing tool, and it makes an excellent finishing cut as well. The Easy Rougher is a scraper. So is the Big Ugly (for those who don't know, home made, 3/4 inch square steel barstock about 30 inches long with a piece of tantung steel silver soldered onto each end, a heavy glove is work on the 'handle' end, developed by the Myrtle wood turners on the Oregon coast, who turned at 4,000 rpm on a screw chuck, sharpen in the morning, use one end till lunch, then the other end till end of day). Scrapers are great for roughing and refining the shape, a rounded one is better than a square one.

As to the cut quality, it is simple, you get more tear out with a scraping cut than with a shear or angled cut. This is true with any cutting tool, it is the same steel, sharpened the same way, it is all in what angle the tool is applied to the wood. As for the force on the tool rest, I have always held my gouges level, so most of the force goes onto the tool rest. Cutting with the handle dropped never felt 'good' to me. Other than that, how much you hang out over the tool rest does more to transfer shock to your arms than tool angle.

I have always felt that banjo designs for holding the tool rest in place with one set screw was poorly thought out. Not so on my Robust, where the screw attaches to another floating metal piece on the other side of the tool post, and the pull is on both sides of the tool post.

The biggest difference between the Big Ugly, and the Easy Rougher is that you can sharpen the Big Ugly.

robo hippy

Mac when I first started using the easy rougher I actually forced the tool rest down into the banjo a few times. I was trying to take too big a cut, I don't wat to get into the scraper/ cutter debate, all I will say is that the shavings fly when I use this tool and they look just like the shavings produced by a bowl gouge. I no longer have excessive force on the tool rest so I reckon it is a learning curve altho' a short one.

As to the cut quality, it is simple, you get more tear out with a scraping cut than with a shear or angled cut. This is true with any cutting tool, it is the same steel, sharpened the same way, it is all in what angle the tool is applied to the wood. As for the force on the tool rest, I have always held my gouges level, so most of the force goes onto the tool rest. Cutting with the handle dropped never felt 'good' to me. Other than that, how much you hang out over the tool rest does more to transfer shock to your arms than tool angle.

I have always felt that banjo designs for holding the tool rest in place with one set screw was poorly thought out. Not so on my Robust, where the screw attaches to another floating metal piece on the other side of the tool post, and the pull is on both sides of the tool post.

The biggest difference between the Big Ugly, and the Easy Rougher is that you can sharpen the Big Ugly.

robo hippy

I also discounted this tool until I saw it demonstrated extensively at the Desert Woodturning Roundup. I watched the inventor turn a bowl from a round wet blank to a final turned bowl, turning outside and inside with the Ci1 Rougher. I was impressed enough to purchase both the large one and the smaller version. I purchased them through Craft Supplies booth, they were giving a 10 percent discount and free shipping at the show.

When we returned home, they were waiting for us. I found the most awful piece of wood in the shed and mounted it poorly, i.e., not the truest mounting and went to work. The blank was approximately 10" in diameter to begin with, but I only obtained about a 5" bowl out of it. The thing was spalted and rotten, but the Ci1 impressed me significantly. There were no catches, it just cut away the wood. I found that a final pass with a bowl gouge gave me a better finish, but one could have started sanding with 60 grit sand paper and finished the bowl well. This really is an excellent roughing tool.

I then tried it on a spindle, a piece of good wood, Red Birch that was dry. At 1000 rpm there was some tear out, but it roughed the wood quickly. I turned the lathe up to 3000 rpm and got a very smooth cut. Not as smooth as a skew chisel, but very smooth, ready to sand with

Needless to say, I feel they were a good purchase. You can turn beads with it but not tight coves. Incidentally, I recently turned a ball with it using the Soren Berger Sphere Caliper for measuring and layout. It turned out very well, it was about a 2" ball, so I couldn't make a Chinese Ball from it. The rougher did a nice job turning the ball.

Fred Holder

How is this different from the Hunter tool?

It's round.

The Hunter has a round shaft and cutter, that is designed to be rolled on it's side and do a hollowing or finish cut on end grain (I have one). While the Easy Finisher is designed for a flat cut and (probably) doesn't give as fine a finish cut

Hmmm... sort of like asking the difference between a gouge and a scraper.. The ER is a carbide scraper with a massive handle, designed to rough out blanks..

The Hunter and Eliminator are designed to hollow, cove and shear... I use my Mega Eliminator for just about everything BUT roughing..

mac

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:>How is this different from the Hunter tool? :> :> :>

: Hmmm... sort of like asking the difference between a gouge and a scraper.. : The ER is a carbide scraper with a massive handle, designed to rough out : blanks..

: The Hunter and Eliminator are designed to hollow, cove and shear... : I use my Mega Eliminator for just about everything BUT roughing..

My mistake; I was looking at the Easy Finisher:

-- Andy Barss

I can't speak for the Hunter, Andy.. Robohippy uses them a lot..

I have the mega eliminator, which is a 1" diameter stainless steel shaft with a "Hunter type" carbide cutter and I use it a lot..

I don't use it for roughing for a couple of reasons, the first being that I feel that impacts are going to be hard on the carbide, which can be brittle.. Might not be a fact, as I've only put a noticeable chip in one cutter, and that one got dropped.. Second, roughing something, especially the odd chunks that I usually start with, just seems wrong with a little round disk.. I use a roughing gouge or Olan tool for that because I feel that they're made for that job..

On a bowl blank that was already rounded on the bandsaw, you could pretty much do the whole bowl with the carbide cutter, but other than "see if I can do it", I'm not sure why anyone would.. Also with cutters at over $20 each plus shipping, I'm pretty careful about when to use the carbide and when another tool will do as well..

mac

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I also use it, bot -only- for hollowing end-grain. For that it takes a fair cut and leaves a fair finish. You need to play with it a bit to get the angle right, but it does work as advertised. For shear-cut/finish work, I prefer the Sorby Shear tool, it is set to force the angle to the correct angle for a shear-cut, and the blade (being HSS) can be user sharpened.