hollowing verus scrappers

I may be wrong, but hollowing tools are scrapers. If you look at the bits that go in the end of the tool to me it looks like a round nose scraper only really small. You could go to Darrel Feltmate's site and look at the tools he makes. If you don't want to spend much but get a taste of hollowing making your own tools might be the way to go.

to the bottom and then you can scrape out from it with less problems. unfortunately i've never seen a long forstner bit. rich

There are tools designed to cut, as well. Ken's Proforme and similar modified hook tools come to mind.

Hi Keith

Like Bruce says hollowing tools are mostly scrapers, there are also ring and hook tools to help hollowing bowl and hollow forms. And yes go to Darrell Feltmate's site, not only does he show you how to make a hook tool and scraper (oland tool), swan neck hollowing tool and some more tools, he also has a video you can download and see how he hollow turns, and the next thing is get some books or videos or best of all some hands on instructions from someone to show you how to do hollow turning.

http://www,aroundthewoods.com Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Keith Young wrote:

Keith,

Hollowing tools can cost multiple hundreds of dollars. Before you buy a hollowing system, I recommend that you determine what kind of hollow forms you want to make.

If you want to make small things like hollow globes for Christmas ornaments, you need a small system like the Kelton mini set of 3 or the Packard mini hollowers set of 3.

For vessels approaching 6 or 7", the Kelton small hollowers or the John Jordan 1/2" hook work great.

For larger than that, there are a number of systems like the Don Pencil Scorpion or the Jordan 3/4" hook tools.

All of these are scrapers. There are also cutting tools, but most of those tend to be most useful for forms more than 3" to 4" in size. There are a number of hook cutters. There are also guarded cutters like the Exocet and the Proforme systems. The last two are really only good for forms larger than 6 to 7".

Once you determine what you want to turn, I STRONGLY recommend that you borrow prospective tools from friends so that you can really try them. This makes the $100 to $200+ purchase much more informed.

Which do I have? Almost all of the above and some others too. I do forms in all of the above sizes and several shapes. I didn't, however, go out and buy all the tools at once. I purchased each one as the need developed.

Joe Fleming - San Diego

You can make your hollowing tools from a 3/4' steel bar crilling a hole in the end for a tool bit which can be bought from Grissly for a couple of bucks. They are steel bits ground round on the tip like a scrapper. Put this bar in a piece of pipe and you have a hollowing tool for little of nothing. You can even take the other half of your steel bar and drill a hole at a 45 degree angle and use the same bit and you have a boring bar you can use to hollow under the lip. Look at Jamison's website and he gives you all kind of good information. You can make two hollowing tools for less than $20.

Vern

Vern... this sounds like something I need info on... do you have the URL? I googled "Jamison" and got like 35 pages of links.. lol

mac

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I use a bowl gouge to get nearly the inside shape I want, then use a scraper to smooth the inside because I always leave a few ridges with the bowl gouge. The scraper, I think, comes from Sorby (I am upstairs and the workhop is all the way downstairs). It is round and sharpened on the left edge as well as the tip and that makes it very easy to use on the side of a bowl. .Only cost me about 20 bucks.

Bob Moody

thanks, Ralph.. interesting/bizare/tech site!

mac

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