BGM100

[mike40]

I see your point Rob. Sharpening, not honing. Sounds like a plan. I have to admit that a lot of steel goes to waste with the bench grinder as opposed to a finer stone like the Tormek has. I think I shortened my bowl gouge at least an inch trying to learn a side grind and I wound up getting the Wolverine jig anyway because it still wasn't as good as I wanted, although it cut pretty good I couldn't take the ugliness of it after seeing all the nice ones in books and videos. As for carving tools, The leather honing wheel and extra leather disks should do a very good job on carving tools. Normally the bevels are blended into the shape of the blade and I think the the smooth stone and honing wheel would make that easy to do, although mine are already done. I don't do a lot of carving partly because I've been a little lazy about keeping them sharp enough and also pain in my hands. Maybe I will do a little more carving if it's not so time consuming to keep keen edge on the tools. I like to carve on some of my turnings. I have a nice 3" thick Linde wood plank that should be nice to turn and carve. I'm thinking something old looking, maybe a an ale mug design made from staves and held together with willow bands.

[Rob]

That sounds nice Mike.

I've only ever carved one thing in my life which was a rose to go on the two ends of a fireplace surround (just under the mantle). My mate carved the other side.  Did enjoy it though and we used carpenters chisels for the leaves :-)  All hand sharpened on oil stones as I recall.

[Herman Trivilino]

I'm not a turner, but I've always considered those turning tool jigs the jewel in the Tormek crown.  I feel that by not being a turner I'm not able to take full advantage of my Tormek.

Maybe I need to find some turner friends and sharpen their tools for them.   

[mike40]

Or  better yet Herman, buy yourself a lathe. You can get a nice small lathe with all the good stuff like variable speed 12" swing (diameter capacity) mini or midi lathe at a very reasonable price nowadays. Turning is fun, you might enjoy it.

[mike40]

Carving can widen the scope of  turning designs and make the work more interesting. The carving doesn't have to be fantastic either. Here's a piece I decorated with a repetitive chip carving pattern. It was a little boring so I did the carving work over a period of a couple of weeks just spending a little time each day I spent working on it.

[Rob]

Very nice Mike.  I can actually feel the inexorable pull of carving to be honest.  I turn quite a lot of magic wands for the kids fairs and I frequently use a dremel with a diamond burr to create flutes or holes etc....its just a carver with a motor basically.  I think carving and I are inevitable partners at some point.  Trouble is I'm rubbish at drawing, general art etc so I've always assumed I'll be useless at it and that's kept me away I think. Not my usual positive minded approach I admit but I've always shied away from anything too arty farty.  Turning is about as arty as I get....though I absolutely love the creative process inherent in turning.

[mike40]

I'm not very creative and I can't draw either Ron, but there are lots of books with carving out there. Chip carving can be done relatively easily and a reasonable skill level can be attained fairly fast. You only need one chip carving knife for most patterns. You can use an entire pattern or just a part of one and you can repeat the pattern over and over just to get some interesting textures. Chip carving that is well done can be very nice and the patterns need not be too complicated or difficult to cut. The most important thing with chip carving is a very sharp knife, and you can get that quite easily on your Tormek and follow-up with the honing wheel to maintain your edge.

The reason that I started carving on my turnings was that for a long time I didn't  have access to a lot of figured woods, and plain woods don't always make for interesting turnings, so it was a simple way for me to improve the scope of my work. Another thing I do on occasion with plain white wood turnings on occasion is to dye them black or some other deep color and carve a shallow design with my 'V' tool. This is easy to do and it can be very effective due to the contrast between the dark background and the white wood. A lot of fun and it does require and special skills. The nicest turnings to carve are end grain turnings because the walls are all side grain and therefore carve very nicely. You still have to pay attention to the grain direction as you carve though.

I also plan to experiment a little with marquetry on some turned items, but using thicker woods, not veneer for the work. I'm thinking this might work well on glued up stave vessels. Worth a try anyway!

[Jeff Farris]

So when you say skews etc benefit from a really fine edge....I'm not entirely sure what you mean?  Point being that a 320 grit finish with no discernible tool marks is "good enough" to commence sanding.  You're not saying that you can avoid sanding altogether are you?

That's exactly what I'm saying. On long grain projects (trunk of tree parallel to lathe bed) I rarely if ever sand.

Also I would be interested in your perspective on Mike's point about how long that hard won edge actually lasts.  I appreciate a fine edge will mean longer between sharpenings but surely you would agree that edge will be quickly "normalised" when used in turning?

In a week long class at Craft Supplies in Provo three of us were sharpening with Tormek and 5 guys were sharpening with dry grinders and Wolverine jigs. I encouraged the other two guys (who didn't know beforehand that I was going to be there) to take their skews and spindle gouges to a polish. We sharpened once to the dry grinders' three times and spent about 1/3 the time sanding that they did. That's over a week, doing both spindles and bowls. Made a couple converts that week.

Plus....Jeff...now be honest...you always defend the Tormek way......go on admit it 

Not entirely true. Tormek would prefer that I promote the use of the jigs when honing, which I rarely do, preferring freehand honing. Similarly, I find the use of jigs for small knives and axes to be cumbersome, and say so. These are just a couple examples of where my advice strays from "the company line".

[mike40]

I can second what Jeff said about no sanding with the skew Ron. A well sharpened skew can leave a beautiful finished surface which is so smooth that it is shiny. I always hone my skew to a very fine edge. I have occasionally gotten a similar finish with a small gouge, but only after resharpening and only on the rare occasion. Maybe the Tormek will change my luck.

[Rob]

well...give it a whirl and report back....now you have no excuse for not getting those jigs Mike :-)

It's Rob Mike...not Ron :-)

[mike40]

Yes I need those jigs badly Rob. Sorry about the misspell, I saw it after posting and there doesn't seem to be any edit function.  I'll have to start using preview more. Talking about skews we had a local guy doing some demonstrations in my turners club some years ago who could do about anything with a skew and he left a perfect polished surface every time. He could do quite tight coves with the tip. He was using a thin oval skew for that work. I haven't even tried doing that.

[Rob]

If you look at a post you've submitted within the thread you'll notice it has a little modify button on the right hand side, that's the edit function.
I use a skew on its end to do coves too...brilliant for that. Clearly however I have some way to go in getting the perfect finish.

[mike40]

Thanks Rob. I try to find that button on this reply. OK, found it. I think I must be slightly dyslexic since I often have difficulty finding stuff like that. I get a lot of teasing from the family for it.

[Rob]

no worries Mike :-)

[Rob]

I'm not a turner, but I've always considered those turning tool jigs the jewel in the Tormek crown.  I feel that by not being a turner I'm not able to take full advantage of my Tormek.

Maybe I need to find some turner friends and sharpen their tools for them.   

Whats stopped you trying turning then Herman?