Skew chisel grinding.....was a grind!

[Elden]

Rob,
   Great to hear from you again. My introduction to a lathe was during the 70's in high school. We were not shown any cutting  procedures, only scraping using mainly gouges. Some years later, I picked up a book that discussed cutting and slandered scraping except for the true scraping tools. So out came the skews and the applied angles of the gouges to the work piece changed. As you told Ken, hello catches! It was disgusting and I would go back to scraping only to return to try cutting again because I liked the cutting results when the tool wouldn't catch. Persistence finally paid off. An instructor would sure have helped!

[Ken S]

Elden,

I agree; it is always great to hear from Rob.

In my prep study for turning, I believe I have discovered the reason why cutting instead of scraping was so difficult and frustrating. (I learned this from Alan Lacer's online videos.) The traditional method of holding billets (wood) in spindle turning is a four prone drive center driven into the wood and a dead center. Dead centers have evolved into live centers. However, in my opinion, the real improvement is using a ring center instead of the four prong center. Whereas a catch with a skew is jolting with the four prong center, with a ring center the billet just stops. With enough practice catches where the billet just stops, the tension lessens considerably and the skew becomes a usable tool.

Ken