Newbie Question - Carbide Tools

Hal Good to have you on board. One of my lathes is the Mastercraft equivalent of the single tube. Ruth used to turn on one as well until she got her General. People will crap on it but I find it still to me a good and dependable machine when used within its limits. Carbide tipped tools were a novelty a while ago. They were going to be the be all and end all of turning tools because they seldom need sharpening. Unfortunately they are also a pain to sharpen because they need a special wheel and also they will not sharpen as finely as HSS or high carbon steel. High carbon steel takes the finest edge but will not hold it long under the conditions that we turn especially for artistic turning with burls and bark edged pieces that may have bits of grit left in the bark from felling. HSS seems to be the best compromise with ease of sharpening and an edge that retains well. That said, all you need to sharpen the carbide tools is the proper wheel. Diamond if you feel rich and green carbide otherwise. Busy Bee and Lee Valley both had them the last I checked. Here is a wee bit of advice. Save yourself a lot of agravation and make or buy a sharpening jig. There is one on my site to copy (nothing to sell but I like shooting off my own horn). It will do the job of a $200 jig and I think mine cost about $2.50. Welcome, have fun, check in here often, they are a great bunch of guys and gals, and happy new year.

I have a set of those same crafstman tools. Use them until you can afford some HSS or even carbon steel tools, then put them aside - don't throw them away - they will come in handy if you need to cut metal on your wood lathe (it works, I've done it), or if you have some nasty wood you need to rough, but don't use them for "regular" turning - as others have pointed out, carbide just doesn't take the kind of edge you need - it's too brittle - it needs a slightly rounded edge to hold up.

I think it was Russ Fairfield at a demo who explained that carbide didn't take an edge very well, but it held it longer than a tool steel edge. "So you have a mediocre edge that lasts a long time."

I have some of my Dads that I still use, particularly the scrapers.

Old Guy

I wonder if the carbide chips were cemented into the tips of the manufacturer's regular hcs turning tools instead of soft steel shafts? If so could the tips be ground or cut off leaving enough flute or flat to be reground into a more useful hcs tool? Likely, someone here knows or will do a spark test. I assume that a usable burr can't be burnished on a brittle carbide tipped scraper?

Welcome Hal, Please join in. You can see from my questions above that 'newbie' is a relative term. My first Sears lathe was a new '37 Companion and I'm still confused. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Use a diamond stone and cone. You can grind them with SiC wheels - the kind I use for HSS all the time - but you shouldn't have to or really want to. The stone costs no more than common AlOx, and is cheaper than the soft-bond type a lot of people use both initially and when replacement time comes. Which is fairly rapidly with the soft bond.

They want to be kept with short bevels, as they are brittle, which does limit their peeling ability. Were I in your shoes I'd get a fifty buck set of eight basic tools and get turning with them, If you don't have diamond hones, investment would be less, outcome better.

Thank you all, for you assistance and insight! As suggested, I picked up a set of "inexpensive" HSS tools (just a few), and I'll see what I use, and like, as time goes on. Someone here said "When you get better than those tools, we'll get ya better ones.. (or something simila). Made sense to me! Thanks again! Hal