Big Lathe?

Hi Bill, Probably "groin" is a word that has different meanings in different countries. ex: "bloody" or "knickers" in GB / USA, so "groin" may have a different connotation for some. IIRC, "groin" has marine, architectural and anatomical meanings. Most here knew that you weren't referring to the jettys that prevent the Mississippi from eroding or to the vaulted symbol of the great city of St. Louis.

Why the anatomical region where the lower extremities join the abdomen evokes unusual interest is for someone else to explain. You didn't mean or write "crotch", but perhaps for some "groin" might mean "crotch" and be of unusual interest.

Anyway Bill, thanks for reminding us not to let our upper extremities diverge too far from our shoulders (I don't recall the anatomical region) while turning wood.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Thanks for the correction, Tom. Sorry for my error, Bill.

I failed to consider Gray's dissections or Jackson's gyrations pertinent to a group of woodturners. I just assumed Bill was referring to Webster's definition of "groin". Tom's post explains why Bill's suggestion might be of unusual and international interest, at least to some woodturners.

A good example of the danger in believing everything (anything?) I post to rcw. My advice to lead the flute, rub the bevel and lag the scraper isn't always true and "facts often conceal the truth". :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Maybe I am a bit unusual here, but I always work with the gouge level, or parallel to the ground, and the handle under my forearm. It seems to work best for leverage and control, especially if I am reaching out a bit over the tool rest. I have noticed that others seem to work with the gouge pointing up. I don't think that there are any mechanical advantages here for shear or scraping cuts, or for leverage. At none that I have noticed. robo hippy

I think he meant anchor the tool somewhere aft of McBirney's Point - for right handers.

There, that ought to be good for some googling!

a spot halfway on the line between the front crest of your pelvis and your navel)? ...

Well, it is amazing what you can learn by following up (Googling) on some of the posts on this forum. You are right -- that is what I meant.

Now, is Google going to turn these records over to the feds and suspect that there are a lot of strange folks with a strange fetish?

Bill

Lobby Dosser wrote:

Or thereabouts.

Also amazing is some of the useless bits of information one finds rattling around in one's head.

No doubt they already think that, what with GITDP and all.

might work for some of the younger guys here, but I have to use a gouge.. *g*

Mac

I'm really not sure WHAT angle I hold the tool at.... but I know that when i'm doing the outside of a bowl, I try to have the tool at the same angle as the rest, (which doesn't work when I use the round or flat stock ones), but on the inside of the bowl I seem to end up with the chisel parallel to the lathe bed... Of course, that could be part of my tear out problem.. Mac

You have touched on one of the advantages of a short-bed lathe. With a long bed, when working inside a bowl, one can't get the handle low because it will run into the bed. On a short-bed, you can stand on the end of the lathe and keep the handle low because there is nothing for you to run into. When I get very aggressive inside a bowl, I will frequently tuck the handle of the gouge under my right arm pit (not groin this time). I keep the handle low, though, by leaning over. Actually I don't have to lean over that much because I'm pretty short.

Another thought on the subject -- there are several lathes where the top surface of the tool rest is pretty wide and sloped at maybe a 50 deg. angle from horizontal. So, if you hold the handle of the gouge down, the tool will be resting on the back edge of the top surface of the rest rather than the front edge. The Jet and Powermatic rests share this unfortunate design characteristic and I think that they are unusable for that reason. They encourage bad turning and get in the way of good turning. I think that many would profit by replacing the original equipment rests on those machines with ones designed for wood turning.

Bill

mac davis wrote:

Or, you could choose a tool which presented the edge properly for cutting and took full advantage of tool rest support. That's where the forged gouges excel, they're the same edge presentation as the wings of a bowl gouge standing almost vertically when the handle's parallel to the bed. Then there's the advantage gained by dropping the handle slightly slightly, rolling into the piece and trailing the final point of cut to fair the inside. Answer to two problems - tear-out, which is minimized by narrowing the face of the cut (rolling back toward vertical) inside steepening curves, and catches, which are made extremely difficult by good tool support on the rest and bevel, which is ground at the same angle all across, along with the natural curve of the gouge.

Sadly, there appear to be nothing but cylindrical rests out there in the replacement realm. If you know of others, chime in, I'm looking for a smaller curved one. Resting a cylinder on a cylinder with some control is difficult to begin with, and with a fingernail grind prone to rotation, even worse. Of course, you can't get the fulcrum any closer than clearance plus radius, either. When I transitioned from Ol' Blue to the 3000, I considered modifying my grinds to suit the new rests, then realized I still had one old - my "S" rest - to work with. Took a file to the 3000 rests, and never looked back.

snip...

...snip Both the Woodfast tool rests and the Stubby rests are properly designed, IMHO. They both have a properly designed surface to support the tool and both have an indentation on the back which fits your index finger.

If there was an after-market for these rests I'd be happy to consider supplying them.

Woodfast makes both inboard and outboard 's' shaped rests which I could import but I haven't seen one so have no idea right now what they look like. They don't make a rest with a single curve.

Bill

Not me. I hold the tool to the rest, not the piece. That's unnecessary. If you remember your vector geometry, you want to keep the angle less than

The ones at Vicmarc.com appear shorter than the reach on my cast iron. I suppose I could use my offset extension, which I do sometimes, but I prefer not to play with a third item.

Right... the bed does get in the way with long handled chisels, especially bowl gouges... love to have an outboard tool rest and turn the head stock...

What I meant, though, was the angle of the chisel when you're inside the work, though maybe a bowl is a bad example and a box or vessel would be a better one... kind of hard to maintain an angle when you're 4 or more inches inside the work.. Mac

I have a few rests like these... I find the flat top better than the round, but still prefer a little angle on them..

There is a problem with getting a good cutting angle on larger and deeper bowls. The tool rest and the rim of the bowl are in the way when using a swept back grind gouge. I have 2 gouges that have a profile similar to the roughing gouge, only with the wings slightly rounded back and not square (I don't like catches) The angle on the cutting edge is about 85 degrees, the same as on my scrapers. This works well for the curve near the bottom, and the bottom of the bowl because the handle points straight out as you ride the bevel across the bottom. I also have a 1/4 by 3/4 quarter round scraper (similar to Raffen's shear scraper) which on edge gives a nice shear cut across the bottom of the bowl. robo hippy

My solution to the problem, albeit somewhat clumsily photographed, as I had to hold the tools with one hand and the camera with another, is the use of a forged gouge. For the outside work, you may substitute a broad roughing gouge. The tool doesn't catch because the bevel angle is ground the same all around. It can't roll without you changing the horizontal angle of the tool and taking a deeper cut, because the bevel angle is the same all around the nose. No gaps or steeper fingernailed bevels means no catches.

This was with an as-is edge, the wood is dry birch, which has a tendency to tear, and yet the surface is easily 150 or better.

Nicest thing about it, for folks who love their elbows - and groins - is the gouge is firmly supported throughout on the rest, giving a nice close fulcrum for nearly effortless shaving, and the gouge handle never drops more than two-three inches from the horizontal, depending on where you're cutting on the arc of the gouge.