There is a lot of truth in the last statement.
I'm a wood and metal lathe guy and have a metal mill.
I can make most anything I want.
HSS is sharper and will cut like a knife edge.
Carbide is a more blunt edge - has radius and is intended for
loaded conditions.
The important thing about them is they will cut the so called Rose woods
of Central America - those loaded with silicon and we have them
up here in North America as well.
Any wood that dulls HSS carbide is good. There are M2, M42 (42
tougher!) and a number of other HSS. So if your regular skew fails,
switch to M2 or M42 skew first.
I like the 'indexable' inserts that are square, triangle, long triangle,
rounds and such. But have only used M42 so far on wood.
Martin
On 4/3/2011 2:26 PM, Bill Noble wrote:
On 4/3/2011 6:05 AM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 3/30/2011 2:02 AM, Mac Davis wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:32:21 -0700, Gary Kunstmann
wrote:
What is the safest method to trim the excess from red oak 2 X 2 spindle
blanks before turning?
IMHO, on something as small as 2x2, the only way is on the lathe..
A roughing gouge will round a 12" blank in a few minutes.. A carbide
tool in seconds..
My favorite roughing tool is the Bowl Pro:
http://www.woodchuck-tools.com/Tools.htm
I like a standard large roughing gouge which also works in seconds.
Large being the key.
Looking at the bowl pro, and some others, the business end looks like a
standard segmented planer knife that is on my grizzly planer. Looks like
a fun project to make one of those with one of my spare inserts. I like
the carbide idea, should last a while...
http://www.grizzly.com/products/Inde...-10-Pack/H7319
or
http://tinyurl.com/3j3wek7
1. beware of large roughing gouges - they take dramatically more skill
than a 1/2 or 3/4 inch gouge and can easily catch - just use a 1/2 inch
spindle gouge - for little blanks like that, if it takes you 30 seconds
to round them off with a 1/2 inch gouge you aren't doing it right
2. suggest you eschew carbide - it's not needed, it's brittle and it
doesn't take the type of edge you need for wood - use it if there is a
lot of grit or metal in the wood and you have to do a lot of cutting,
but otherwise just use HSS