"Olebiker" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Feb 2, 5:43 am, "George" wrote:
Amazing. Though I'm of the belief that there may have been more scraping
then cutting involved, I certainly would be interested in seeing the
technique. You grow by learning.

The wood was birch. I presented the edge of the skew almost
vertically (maybe 5 degrees off).

I began by rubbing the bevel then rotating the handle outward until
the edge started to pick up. As I moved forward down the curve of the
bowl I had to rotate the handle further out to keep the edge
engaged.

This was merely a finishing cut after the forming had been done.
Since the edge was nearly vertical there was little chance of a catch
occurring. I tried emulating the same sort of cut with a bowl chisel
but could not get the same result.

I appreciate everyone's advise and concern for my safety. Back to the
drawing board.

Dick "no ER trips yet" Durbin


It's the nose of the skew that causes concern for me. Were you trailing the
cut, so the nose remained above the surface, or nosing down? Straight
chisel would be safer.

I do similar with the nearly straight portion of a U -shaped gouge, but it
has the same problem of naturally ejecting when the bevel tries to stay
engaged at the heel on an out-sloping surface. Got to change angle of attack
and keep lifting the bevel to keep the tool in the work, even when the bevel
is fairly short. I've seen " famous-name" people associated with
straight-edge tools and end grain trimming, but I prefer the slight bit of
extra safety available by using a large radius gouge. Have to keep the
whole thing above center, and the ears out, but the grain pick-up is at the
bottom, or beginning of the cut, with a clean cut at the top, where the edge
is almost vertical.

In short, the edges are going out and away with a gouge, not straight as
with a chisel, or, and this I don't care to play with much - into the work
with a nose-up skew.

Try scraping gently, especially on wet wood.