"Kevin" wrote in message
...
I was reading over the last couple topics on tool making. One was
posted prior to the MI5 deluge on 21 Nov and the latest on 26 Nov. and
they got me to thinking last night whilst I was happily turning away
about the number of tools I own vs the number that I actually use.
Now I am speaking of things like gouges, scrapers, parting tools and
the like. I thought and realized that I use perhaps 3 tools on all
the bowls I make - a bowl gouge, a scraper, and a parting tool. I
use the latter for making a tenon as well as to mark out the top edge
of the bowl so I have some idea of where the curve will begin and end.
Very rarely do I use a spindle gouge on a bowl but occasionally it
does come into play when I want to get at a bit of roughness near the
outer edge of the tenon. That I use around three tools is not really
news. I recall reading on this group several years in the past that a
lot of folks here are about the same.

I use a few more on bowls than you, mainly because I cut from 16 to 2 inch
diameter and it's pretty tough to do it all with the same tools. If you
count "bowl" gouges as the same tool in various sizes, that cuts off three.
If you count "spindle" gouges the same way, cuts off two more. I don't do
tenons, so the parting tool outside is one of those 3/32 types to cut the
mortise which is finished by a pointy gouge. On the inside, parting off the
pedestal, I use a 1/4" type because of the reach.

Of course I use the two big "roughing" gouges on the outside, a skew or
beading tool for beads, and, from time to time a scraper on the hooker tool
underneath deep rims, which are contoured originally by pointy gouges.

You certainly can use small-size stuff to cut inside big shapes, but the
opposite doesn't work well at all. Guy I used to hang around used Oland
(the real ones) tools for everything, but even he had two.