I have noticed that many people seem to indiscriminately use their wood lathe tools; they pick up a piece of wood and remove the nearest chisel, spear, or gouge and start carving them away. It works to some extent, but the results will not be as good as they could be. To get a professional look, you need to use the right woodturning tools for the job.
So the question that needs to be answered is: what is the right tool? In some cases, this is obvious and easy to fix, but many don’t care. Take the example of the roughing. I know a lot of people who will use a skew chisel to make their roughing cuts. ! It’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen it several times before.
They do not even seem to realize that it takes half an hour for the piece of wood to be rounded at the edges or the fact that the chisel is bent and chipped because of the great roughness with which they work. They start with a skew chisel, and you better think they continue! I have seen a couple of projects go from the first cut to the final cut with just a chisel.
So if you are one of those people or don’t know which tool is the best for scalloping, I will try to highlight the most common carpentry tools and explain a little bit about the function and form of each.
The first is simple, and it is the roughing gouge. It is a large chisel with a rounded tip and a U-shaped profile. It is designed for one purpose, and the purpose is to convert your rough square section piece of wood into a coarse cylinder. Any tool can do it in the end, but it goes much faster with a large gouge like this.
Then we have the skew chisel. It is a smaller chisel with a flat, angled end. It is suitable for smoothing, trimming, and making these small V-cuts. Since this equipment is so versatile, it is normal to obtain many advantages, but that does not mean this wood lathe tools should be used for all purposes.
A parting chisel is a diamond-shaped tool with rough edges. A fine, sharp point is very good for cutting at the end of a project, as well as for making very small delicate coatings, but not much else. This tool will likely remain in the box for most projects and will appear at the end.
Finally, you may want to use a round nose chisel to turn scallops or groves. It is, in many ways, similar to its coarse gouge, which has a similar shape and profile but is smaller and more suited to the precise size.
The bottom line of the article is that you should always use the right woodturning tools for the right job.
