Making and Using Turning Tools

Master turning tools, and make new tools for yourself...you'll save money and build your skills at the lathe. Here are 21 practical, skill-building technical articles for woodturners of all skill levels-expert, shop-tested insight and advice from the pages of American Woodturner, journal of the American Association of Woodturners. Turning tools are expensive but the good news is, you can make most of them for yourself. That's because once you have learned how to sharpen turning tools, you've also acquired the skill and technology you need to make them for yourself. There's a knack to using every kind of turning tool, a set of skills and moves to cut the wood the way you want. This book shares a wealth of hard-won tool-using information developed by contemporary wood turners. This book will show you how to: - Save money and build skill by making your own turning tools from rods and bars of tool steel. If you know how to sharpen, you already know how to do it - Use the spindle roughing gouge for both roughing down and detailing - Make and use every kind of flat-bar tool, including skews, round-nose scrapers, and negative-rake scrapers - Make a set of cove tools from round steel rod, and use them to cut perfect coves - What steels to use and why, and how to recognize good steel in salvage and scrap - How to grind, harden and temper steel tools - How to make a point tool for detailing, a thin-kerf parting tool, a plug-and-inlay tool, and micro tools for small work - Why many bowl-turners prefer the side-ground gouge - How to make and use a traditional hook tool - Why carbide-tipped tools have taken the turning world by storm - and much more.