WOODTURNING TOOLS: Traditional vs. Carbide?

hi i'm ashley harwood and today we are going to be talking about tools specifically the kind of tools that i'm using to cut and shape wood while it's spinning on the lathe let's get started [Music] so one question that i get quite a bit is ashley what is your opinion on carbide tools i think that the first thing we need to do is talk about the difference between carpet cutting tools and traditional gouges and chisels so the biggest difference is that carbide tools are scrapers whereas the gouges that i'm using are cutting the wood what's the difference between cutting and scraping when you're cutting you have the bevel support of a cutting edge the bevel is preventing the wood that's behind the wood that's getting cut from being torn whereas when you're scraping you're just scraping that surface and so you might end up with a subpar finish if you don't have that bevel support of the wood so i think one thing that you're going to be able to see is a big difference between traditional gouges and carbide tools is that when you're cutting with traditional gouges and it's working the way it's supposed to you can send ribbons flying across the room traditional tools take a bit more practice and a bit more knowledge to know how to use them well but once you put in the time and the homework and you gain that knowledge and you put in the time to practice then using traditional gouges can be very rewarding you can remove a whole lot of wood really quickly and still achieve a nice clean finish when you're cutting with carbide tools it's very easy it doesn't take a whole lot of practice to learn how to use carbide tools you can definitely get to the shape but at times it might take a little bit longer and you might have to do some more you know fixing to the finished surface once you get to the shape that you want the other thing that i think is a really important distinction when i'm cutting with a bowl gouge and i'm pushing the gouge through the wood it can only move through the wood as fast as it's cutting the wood i'm creating a smooth continuous curve in part by utilizing the resistance that i'm getting from the wood with a carbide tool if i want to make a nice smooth pleasing curve i'm basically tracing it in the air if that makes sense so let's take a little bit of a closer look at what makes up these tools first we'll start with the carbide tools the carbide tools usually have a shaft with a flat bottom that's because they're meant to be used like this straight up and down and they're meant to be kept level and to be cutting at the center of the piece of wood as it's spinning now there are round cutter tips and square cutter tips these cutter tips are meant to be used until they're dull and then thrown away and replaced it's actually brilliant marketing if you ask me they as you start to dull part of the surface here you can just rotate it around and you can use a new part of the surface until the thing is completely dull and then you would throw it away and replace it these take very little training to learn how to use and i think that that's in large part what's contributed to their popularity these days now traditional gouges on the other hand do take a bit of training and practice to learn how to use so when we look at this gouge there's there's a few different parts i want to talk about these gouges are measured in their diameter and then they also have a flute that runs down the middle the flute is what allows the wood to escape as it's being cut and we have a bevel that goes all the way around the cutting edge and then we have the cutting edge itself this part back here is not a part of the bevel that's actually where i've just removed tool steel to make it easy for my tool to make it around the inside of a concave curve now when we're looking at this a little bit more closely we have the nose of the gouge which is right here and then we have the wings of the gouge the way this bowl gouge is going to cut as it's moving through the wood it's going to be slicing through the wood with the nose and it's going to be peeling with the wing at the same time it's a very efficient way of removing material like i said it takes a bit of training and then it takes some practice to become proficient at using a bowl gouge most of my bowl gouges have what's called a 40 40 grind on them the wings are straight and they're swept back at 40 degrees from the length of the tool so i hold the tool up like this there's a 40 degree sweep and they have a 40 degree bevel angle and that's a consistent 40 degree bevel angle all the way around the tool that's a 40 40 grind if i'm going to purchase a bowl gouge there's three main things that i'm looking for i'm looking for the diameter of the tool steel i'm looking for what type of tool steel it is and i'm looking at the flute shape now i use several different size diameters for my bowl gouges i have a three quarter inch diameter that's for my bottom bowl gouge this tool is going to have a lot of overhang off the tool rest so i want it to be robust and i want to minimize the amount of vibration that i'm going to get during a cut i have two gouges that are essentially the same thing but in two different sizes this is a 5 8 diameter tool and this is a half inch diameter tool they're both elliptical fluted bowl gouges i use this tool for removing more bulk for making roughing cuts for getting things down to size i use this tool for a lot of the spindle turning the finer turning and the finishing cuts on my work whether it's spindle turning or bowl turning now there's three primary flute shapes in bowl gouges you have an elliptical or parabolic flute which is my preference if i'm going to be making a 40-40 grind you have a v-shaped flute and then you have a u-shaped flute now i like using the u-shaped flute for my bottom bowl gouge so there's my quick and dirty explanation of the differences between carbide tools and traditional gouges if you would like to learn about the 4040 grind that i use on my tools and how i make that push cut i do have a couple of online courses that are available through the woodwhispererguild.com and the links for that are down below this video also if you're interested in any of the tools that i'm showing here with the exception of the carbide tools i do have those available on my website again the link is below but it's ashleyharwood.com all right i will see you guys next time bye thank you so much for watching if you like what you saw i do hope that you'll hit subscribe and don't forget to also hit that little notifications bell so you don't miss any of our upcoming videos also don't forget that all of the links are down below so if you're interested in any of the tools that we're using check out the links down below this video i would like to give a big thank you to all of my patreon members your support really helps us to continue to produce high quality photos and videos for all of my social media channels thank you so much if you would like more of a behind the scenes look about what's going on here in my studio or in my classroom or with whatever project i might be working on head on over to my patreon page also at the 10 level those patrons will receive advanced notice of when i'm going to be scheduling my classes so if you want to make sure that you can get into my next class spots that open up check out the patreon page again the links are down below and lastly i would like to give a big shout out to my top tier patrons andrew nydal carrie carpenter chris cairns dr david matheson erica vane george selznick jim tate chris jones mark glonick robert hunt and steve snyder thank you so much well that's all for today i'll see you guys next time everybody stay safe [Music] you

Channel: Ashley Harwood

Views: 149,944

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Id: EO3N_-SKxUU

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 21 2020