I only own shallow gouges and plan to do alot of end turning, bowls especially, and wonder what advantage does a deep bowl gouge offer over a shallow gouge. Does it give you more angle of attack so to speak, reduce the possibility of catches, etc. Your help is greatly appreciated.
STEMO
Reach, mainly. Bowl gouges can reach farther over the rest than standard spindle gouges, Plus, as you noted, the design gives you a few angle of attack options inside a piece.
Try to take too big a bite with either pattern and you can catch, especially if you have the nose up into the rotation.
Hello Stemo,
The main difference between deep bowl gouges and shallow gouges (also called spindle gouges) is cros-sectional mass. Virtually all bowl gouges are machined from heavy solid round stock. The offer more mass and result in less vibration of the end of the tool that is cutting. That deep flute also gives you more cutting edge to use before you have to sharpen the tool again.
Fred Holder
You definitely want a bowl gouge for going inside on bowls. There is much more mass to the tool, for one thing, which gives you greater stability. The deep flute of a bowl gouge is also more condusive to cutting on the inside. It takes great skill to get away with a spindle gouge on the inside of a bowl. A bowl gouge is much safer. There is a reason they make bowl gouges for bowls. I use a bowl gouge for both inside and outside of bowls, going to spindle gouges only for fine details. Raffan's book "Turning Wood" explains the geometry of tool cutting better than I can, and why a bowl gouge is made for bowls.
-Jim Gott- San Jose, CA
you might also want to look at an Oland tool. This is the basic tool I use for bowls. Check the web site.
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