Roughing

Are you sure what you're calling a "shallow roughing gouge" is a true roughing gouge? My 3/4" roughing gouge has about 3/4" flute depth - not shallow to in my mind. Here's a true roughing gouge:

These are generally sharpened with a fairly steep bevel - on the order of 45 degrees or steeper. I'm thinking you're really using a spindle-type gouge which usually has a much longer bevel - like 30 degrees:

You are likely getting a superior cut with the bowl gouge because the bevel ground on the nose is pretty steep at 50-60 degrees. Due to the angle of the bevel, you are making a cutting action with the bowl gouge rather than more of a scraping action the spindle gouge yields - unless you use the two tool types at very different angles on the tool rest. (Holding the spindle gouge with the handle much, much lower so the bevel is more tangential to the wood surface.)

experienced turners use to rough out such stock?

Answer is you know how to work the one, but not the other.

Shallow forged gouges exist because a large-radius gouge can get more bevel to guide on the work for the same depth of cut than a small radius. What most people do by turning their bowl gouges up on their tails and leaning them against the rest, the shallow types do while fully supported at near 90 degrees. Almost impossible to get a catch in a bowl with that much bevel guiding, and a constant bevel angle as well.

Everyone develops favorite tools for an operation. Matter of style and preference, but try other patterns as you turn to learn how they work. Might just avoid one of those "why is it I never thought of that" (head slap) moments down the road when someone teaches you another way.

I think you have discovered one of the attractions of the Ellsworth Gouge (and other side grind gouges)..........they are very versatile and can be used very successfully for many, many different cuts. If I had to give up all my gouges save one, I'd hang on to the Ellsworth.

Barry

Owen,

I couldn't get the pages on the links to come up (my security is probably set too stringently), but I looked them up in the catalog nonetheless. My roughing gouge is about the same: a 1 1/2" gouge with a 3/4" flute depth and ground to about 45 to 50 degrees. This geometry is, IMHO, rather a shallow gouge when compared with the deep profile of the Ellsworth-type. My Ellsworth gouge is ground with about the same angle, or slightly steeper, maybe about 60 degrees. I'm using either gouge with the bevel rubbing as much as possible. Ellsworth, in his DVD, likes to rough out stock with the gouge level, in other words with something between a scraping cut and a bevel-rubbing cut. I tried this but with somewhat less success than bevel rubbing, ie--dropping the handle somewhat.

Does this info help?

Jeff

Robert,

Mine is a Henry Taylor 1.5" roughing gouge, which has fair mass and probably has been reground somewhat more steeply than it was from the factory. I bought it second hand with about 1" of the original flute missing due to years of sharpening by the previous owner. Still it is a good tool and worth keeping. I just wish I got better results with it than with my Ellsworth-type bowl gouge. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong. I try to keep the bevel rubbing as much as possible. Is this an improper way to use this tool?

Jeff

I'm not exactly sure what you're implying, but I will try some other angles and approaches to the stock. I guess my redundant question is: should I rub the bevel of a roughing gouge, or approach the work with the tool horizontal to the spindle center?

Thanks,

Jeff

At this point that would be my position as well, Barry. Others have suggested some changes to my technique with the roughing gouge, which I hope will improve my performance. But the Ellsworth grind is hard to fault for a great many things. After watching Ellsworth's DVD I've learned to scrape, shear scrape, do something not unlike skew cutting, and of course using the tool as a typical bowl gouge. It's a shear joy (no pun intended) to watch long ribbons of shavings fly off wet wood. I love the thing.

Jeff

Yes.

Some like to use the wing of the U as a tenon-sizer, hugging the toolrest and entering above centerline with a bit of handle-down angle which effectively rubs the bevel along the axis of rotation. Think of your parting tool.

Others use the standard cutting method just at or above centerline which goes A-B-C.

Anchor the tool to the rest. Bevel to the work - heel to toe. Cut by moving the handle to lift the rear of the bevel as the tool is moved along the axis to enter and remove a curl.

With a roughing gouge you can tilt the "ear" to follow the cut, making a surface as smooth as any made by a skew.

Note, that the presence of the curl is what tells you you're cutting rather than scraping. That, and minimal lift on the handle of the gouge.

Hi Jeff. It sounds like you know a roughing gouge from a spindle gouge so I'll just offer a couple additional comments.

I'd try reshaping the roughing gouge to a steeper bevel - like 60 degrees and see if that changes things.

There's absolutely no reason you can't or shouldn't use your bowl gouge to rough out though it does mean more sharpenings on a more expensive tool. I've used my swept-back gouge for this purpose too, but there are advantages to using a true roughing gouge for this type of work. The longer cutting edge offers a longer time between sharpenings removing the very abrasive bark and hard knot stumps as one can roll the tool one way or the other to get a fresh edge. Along the lines of what Robert (nailshooter) mentioned, once the wood is trued you can also more easily use the roughing gouge to quickly and fluidly reduce the bulk of the wood to the form you're after. The bowl gouge's comparatively small nose and swept-back geometry doesn't lend itself to that as well.

In comparing the cut quality of the two tools, you may be seeing the effects of the smaller bite of the bowl gouge which likely leads to less tear out of the rough, irregular surface. Once the circumference is trued though, the roughing gouge can yield a very smooth and cleanly cut surface.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon roughing out a couple of ash branch sections. While I didn't immediately notice any improvement in the speed of roughing the stock to cylinder form with the roughing gouge used as recommended by you and others, you are absolutely correct in the surface quality differences between the bowl gouge and the roughing gouge. I took a little additional time to see what level of surface I could obtain with some judicious use of the roughing gouge after a quick honing, and liked the results. My roughing gouge is an older one, bought second hand, and missing about an inch of the flute, having been ground away by its previous owner over the years. Perhaps the one thing I'd like to have is a newer, longer roughing gouge with a bit more mass to dampen the roughing process a bit more. I think this might be one reason I tended to prefer the Ellsworth gouge--it is long, relatively massive, and takes a smaller bite, thus lessening the tendency to bounce on the rest despite an under-the-rest-and-over-the-tool grip.

Thanks to Owen and the rest of you for your advice. The learning curve is fairly steep at this stage, and every detail helps.

Jeff

Would you like a picture of how to approach an irregular shape with a roughing gouge? It should _never_ bounce on the rest, and once the piece is pretty well round, you should be able to lift one hand - either one - and continue the cut. It's in the angles.

Heh, heh, heh.........addictive.....ain't it???

Barry

A photo would be appreciated and helpful. Perhaps "bouncing isn't quite the right term. It's probably more like pulsing in and out across the rest as the irregular shape pushes the gouge away and then my grip pushes it back. Even when the stock is fairly round I still get some "pulsing."

Jeff

The Ellsworth grind is not radically different from other side grinds I've tried, but it certainly does function differently. I've produced enough wet pine shavings over the past month to become a serious supplier of stall bedding for a couple of friends with horses. There is something therapeutic about watching long tendrils of pine streaking away at high velocity from the flute in that gouge. My wife has accused me of making shavings, not turnings. Mea culpa, I suppose.

Jeff

I'm likely going to catch hell from some for suggesting this...

Make sure the wood is secure on the lathe and then turn the speed up a bit more. It sounds like you're going a bit slow and the tool is advancing into the voids of the irregular surface, resulting in a forceful impact when the void passes and you're back into wood. This will inevitably cause a bigger bite than intended and a more torn surface. Although you can feel this sort of thing with most speeds if you're pushing in too much and not allowing the tool to cut at its own rate, it's very noticeable when in the slower RPM ranges.

Just to give an idea of what speed I'm talking about, for a 3"-4", bark-on piece I'd be in the 1200-1800 range. (If your lathe is walking around your shop from the unbalanced wood or if it just feels like too much vibration to hold the tool steady and controllably, back off the RPMs a tad until things smooth out to a reasonable degree.)

Do you glance at the top of the spinning wood to watch the cut proceed? If not, with practice you'll find it's a good place to judge the progress of the tool and the developing form. If you do already, then try to only take off about 1/16" - 1/8" of wood per traversing pass. Especially with roughing, you want the cut to be shallow until you almost eliminate all the high spots and the piece is trued.

Glad to hear it isn't bouncing. Contactus interruptus is of course always going to be there until the surface is round. Some folks never get to round because they keep trying to stuff the tool into the work instead of letting the work come to them. Your gouge doesn't need mass, in the proper cutting configuration it's laying on a fixed support with your hand on it for coarse control. The B step consists not in laying the bevel to the interrupted surface, but matching the bevel to the slope of the surface, making the same entry cut as you would on a round piece once you feel a bit of contact. That way you cut away most of what would make it bounce.

I'm going to be down in the shop after eleven, so I'll try to pop a couple pictures of spindle rounding the way I teach it. Loss of drive took away most of my previous photos.

You might also want to look at your technique. Your upper hand, the one on the tool rest should act as a depth gauge while turning. It should be held against some part of the rest and not allow the tool to go where it wants to go.

Some rests have a hollow on the back side which makes a perfect place to use an index finger for the purpose. Most rests, though, are mis-designed in my opinion.

Also, use body English to move the tool, not your hands. Lock your elbows against your body.

Also, I don't think 'traversing passes' is the way to go to get a blank round. It is more... (I'll describe it for right-handed)

Take a small scoop from the left end of the blank, scooping to the left and with the gouge rolled to the left.

Back up to the right a little and take another scoop, the same way. Work from the left end of the blank to the right. This speeds removal of the material and also if there is any grain which might lift out, it won't lift more than a short distance. With a little practice this motion will become natural even though it is not at first.

When you are near round, then you can start traversing passes to finish.

Bill

Owen Lowe wrote:

I rough out pretty much the way you've described above, index finger under the rest, thumb on top of the tool in a tight grip, handle against my torso just above the hip, lean my body away from the direction the gouge is progressing, but as Owen implied I am using about 400 to 600 rpm. His recommendation of higher speed will be worth a try.

I've tended to do the Raffan method, right end to left, but I'll give this a try.

Jeff