A good place to start would be Darrell's site at: http://www.aroundthewoods.com/
wherein you will find a plethora of toolmaking tips and lessons. From
my own limited experience, you will probably do better buying a few
quality tools on your own. If you are making bowls, a good start will
be one or two quality gouges from one of the many sites on the web.
Scrapers can be made pretty much to fit your own needs and particular
situations. You may get by with making your own parting tool but they
are not all that expensive. I wouldn't worry all that much about the
steel used as long as it is high carbon at a minimum. It does not
hold an edge as well as M2 or the new fangled powder steels but tends
to hold a finer edge for that last one or two passes over the
workpiece. Another option would be look to tool steels such as can be
found at ENCO (http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRAR?PMSECT=750) lists
some drill rod that can be cut to length, inserted into the end of a
rod of cold steel and then ground to shape.


"Heck, Tom. Sun can't shine on the same dog's ass every day."
-- Crow T. Robot, MST3K, Episode #609


On Nov 21, 2:40 pm, NoOne N Particular wrote:
Hi all,

I have been wanting to make a few of my own lathe tools for a while.
The prices of what I see seem to be very high. At least I thought so
before I started looking for raw materials. I priced 18" pieces of 1/4
x 1 1/2 M2 and M4 tool steel for $110+ and $170+. DANG!!!

So the questions are, what do you use for raw materials (I would assume
plain carbon steel), where do you get it, and what kind of tools do you
make?

TIA,

Wayne