tagnut69 wrote:I have a set of Sorby chisels ( the boxed set of 6) that I use on my electric lathe, I am planning on bulding a pole lathe soon and I know this sounds like a stupid question but they will be Ok to use wont they? I have my eye on a large gouge 1 3/4'' as well.
Cheers
Chris
I remember something one of my numerous mentors once said. "There is no such thing as a stupid question. There are, however, many stupid answers." Sure. Your Sorby tools wil l work fine. The only thing you will miss is a
roughing gouge. Failing this use the biggest gouge you can find. Typical sizes of roughing gouge around 50 mm. This is because when you start turning on real wood (as opposed to the brainwashed stuff you get for power lathes) you will have to expend a great deal of effort to get raw wood down to a cylinder. Then you can really start turning. Hmm. A 1 3/4" gouge is about 25+19 mm. Very close to 50 mm, no? . Ohh yes. Get it. Wish I had one! May yet make one this summer. I have my eye on an ex-bicycle frame tube. Anyway you want as wide a roughing gauge as you can find. I myself spend much more time roughing than I do turning to shape. That is because wood may look round but it really isn't. A power lathe makes all this simple, but we have only our leg. This is why I emphasize roughing gouges. I use a 1"/25 mm carpenter's gouge. Not ideal but better than nothing. Bevels on carpenter's gouges wrong. Curvature (radius) too tight. Want something like 45 deg. bevel. Want very shallow curvature. If the wood is wet you can get it down to a rough cylinder much faster than if it is dry. Recommend you turn up a bunch of cylinders "wet" and turn to shape once dry or drier. Final stuff, really dry. One of these days I will follow my own advice
The other most important thing, and I will say it again and again, is that "sharp" is relative. If you have a 750 Kw motor (1 hp) at your disposal why even a dull edge by my standards will cut well. But we have exactly one legpower. Maybe, on a good day, and if we eat the proper foods and work out frequently, 75 KW. One-tenth the power. And it is effective ony half the time, the rest of the time the pole is restoring the lathe, so really we have about 35 KW at our disposal . One 20th the power of the motor. Really we humans are not as powerful as a sewing machine motor (75Kw). So we must learn to compensate. Our compensation is sharpness of tools. Lots of posts recently from people who use power lathes. Indeed I myself use them, although mostly for metal. But even in metal, even if you use carbide tools, if they are dull you will be frustrated. And even carbide can be dulled. So do learn to sharpen. Really sharpen. Lots of useful info on this board.
by jrccaim » Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:08 am 
