Using the Ellworth Grind

I'm no expert, but I use my bowl gouge both with the flute rolled towards the direction of the cut, and with the flute up. I always use the roughing gouge flute up. As far as I can tell, both methods work, but rolling the gouge on the side gives a much nicer cut. I'm not sure if I haven't had one of those king-sized catches yet, or if I just have good steady nerves and didn't think they were all that bad- but the worst catches I've had were from hitting the piece with the top point of the skew, not from a bowl gouge at any angle.

BTW, what exactly is an Ellsworth grind? I've ground the wings back on my bowl gouge a bit, so that the profile is a little more narrow at the tip, and I have a little more cutting edge- but is there a specific angle or other feature that makes a grind unique enough to earn it's own name? Do some work better than others?

Lots of people doing lots of things. If you're speaking of using the tool inside the bowl, I also run it with the flute more or less up when hogging. Of course the tip is up too, to provide some skew to ease the cut and a good drop for shaving removal. I also leave a re-mount location in my roughs, in the form of a pillar, so I use a fingernail pattern to reduce that in diameter as well.

and the following show that cut. Is that more or less what you were referring to? You can do it outside, too, but you can't really follow a fair curve without some skew, and the long-winged grind doesn't get much bevel in the wood for control.

The Irish guys began grinding back the wings of the new ground cylindrical gouges (cheaper than forging) to try for the long peeling slide they used to get with tools that looked like our roughing gouges fairly soon after the manufacturers changed. Of course they had to accept less tool control from the rest to get it. Nice to see the return of some of the old patterns, though on the continent, it appears they never left.

I had a front row seat at a symposium last year to watch David do his thing. He always uses the gouge flute up on the outside and inside of a bowl, it works well with the flute rolled also. He is a very aggressive turner and you will never get a catch as long as the bevel rides on the piece and your cutting just back of the point. If you engage a wing very far back you can get a catch. I bought his video after his class and it is well worth while. Totally changed my turning.

I suppose that if the entire bevel contacts the wood you won't ever get a catch...or a cut either. If so, then in order to cut, the tool's edge must slightly leave the bevel and be lowered into the wood and now needs to be supported directly over the tool rest. IOW, an unsupported outer edge of a tool can be caught and slammed down on the rest.

I agree with bowlman. However, I suspect that the majority of catches after we learn to ride the bevel before beginning a cut, occur because we don't pay attention or don't follow a routine. We end up waving the tool about the spinning wood and this makes catching an easy snap. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

The bevel guides on the image it has removed, both along the edge of the tool and perpendicular to it. It is much more difficult to maintain a steady reference to the ear of a bowl gouge than to the sweep of a standard gouge, where the edge may be tilted into the cut while still allowing the deepest point to trail for broader reference.

Note the curved image of the gouge in the lower right. This an uphill hog, made possible because the bevel has a lot of support behind it. This is a bowl gouge trimming with its ear. Note the area already cut has a lot of ridging because the small area of contact makes it difficult to maintain a consistent angle to remove shavings. Doing the same inside can be a real white-knuckle experience, even if the bed isn't in the way. . Which is why I like a mild fingernail cylindrical like the one hogging in. Note the width of the cut. By taking a narrower cut with a larger radius gouge, a nice surface is possible. As before, note the face of the cut, which is also guiding the bevel, as is the area behind it.

What this link is showing, I do with no problem. What I was referring to was holding the gouge approximately horizontal, flute up and pushing the nose of the gouge into the wood, so that you cut with the nose and left side of the gouge. It looks scary to me.

Barry

331 > and the following show that cut. Is that more or less what you were > referring to? >

The Ellsworth Grind is..................an alleged, almost legendary, variation of the side grind, highly touted by its namesake David Ellsworth. If you read the advertising hype and listen to it's diehard fans, it is capable of the heaviest of roughing cuts or is capable of removing wispiest shear-cut shavings so light they float in the air as they leisurely make their way to the shop floor.

If you take a careful look at the Ellsworth Grind, it doesn't look much different from other side grinds at first glance, then you start to notice the subtle curves on the wings that other side grinds don't have. In spite of the naysayers, a very close approximation of the Ellsworth Grind can be produced with only the Wolverine jig and vari-grind attachment. Whether or not my results with the Ellsworth Grind are legendary.............. remains to be seen.

Barry

I took David Ellsworth's class a couple of years ago. He has a very specific way to grind the bowl gouge. I think it works better than other ways that I have tried but that is for you to decide. Between David's teachings and what I have gotten from Bill Grumbine I now have

6 different ways to hold and use the gouge(3 inside and 3 outside). Some are roughing cuts and some are finishing cuts. Some are up and some are not. The one that you are referring to that cuts with the nose, flute up, and on the left side is an inside finishing cut. It is very scary until you get the hang of it. To get practice at that cut I used to make thick walled bowls and try it over and over again thinning the wall a little bit as I go. It took about a year for me to feel really comfortable using that cut. But it is a great cut once you get the hang of it. One of the real keys is to make sure that you DO NOT tilt it to the left. The flute MUST be straight up. It can even be tilted a little bit to the right as you get towards the bottom of the bowl. Hope this helps.

Barry:

I do something much like what you describe while working on the inside of a bowl. Probably the flute is somewhere around 12:15 instead of

12:00 and I am cutting just to the left of the center. Also, I think that the handle is a little down.

If I rough out the inside of the bowl by swinging the tool handle all the way to the right and then bringing it around for the cut, I don't feel that I have much control. Instead, I use a 17" Oneway handle and hold it against my body, sometimes even under my arm pit, so that I can guide it down the bowl with body English.

I do start the cut with the handle right and with a scraping cut until I get a shoulder established. Then I switch to the position described above.

I forgot to say -- I use a shortbed lathe and am working from the end of the machine. This doesn't work nearly as well if you have a bed in the way.

Bill

Barry N. Turner wrote:

Ellsworth holds the tool level and rotates the flute about 45° in the direction of the cut. The handle of the tool rotates to give a more aggressive cut. Actually the move you swing the tool away from perpendicular, the more aggressive the cut becomes. I spent a weekend in May at David's studio learning his techniques. On more than one occasion he corrected the way I was cutting with his tool.

Harry

Well it does all those things but most of the side grinds do them too. The Ellsworth gouge also has a parobolic flute. There are several other shapes such as a "U" and a "V" with a rounded bottom that are found. Ellsworth feels that the parabolic flute clears chips better.

I don't know if it does or not. I do know that it is a big, healthy bowl gouge that does what it is advertised to to.

Harry

That describes what I do with "pointy" gouges. Most effective on end grain, where dropping the handle as the cut begins produces good cuts and chip clearance. I sweep left and right by rolling the gouge to the appropriate bevel. Lot of pressure on the handle when hogging. Makes a beautiful trimming cut with little pressure, though.

I do something similar with my Sorby 5/8, even on face grain, though the cut Bill describes is more common at my house. The 5/8 is ground back over an inch on either side. Once again, it's nose slightly up to provide a channel for the heavy shavings this can produce.

If you want a hog with a lot of tool pressure, try the tool nose down, cutting on the left flute at about 7:00-8:00 o'clock like the old ring tool types did. You can lever against the toolrest for some _very_ aggressive cuts, but, like most where you're "riding" the bevel rather than the rest, this has a tendency to get the work out of circular fairly rapidly, so one or two passes should be followed by a couple of peels, referencing the toolrest. The pictures of hook toolers with tool handles under the armpits and pivot pins on the rest tell you how fast they worked.

Hmmm. Sounds like a plug for Stubby lathes. :-)

Jeff

Jeff:

Ummmmm....... I guess so.

Bill

Jeff wrote:

Bill, rcw's two week rule is hereby waived. Your plug is too discreet to invoke cloture. So say we all. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

I thought he handled that quite well..........he didn't mentioned the name...........and he knows quite well that I have one..............Barry