George said:

Gotta disagree with Ken a touch. High speed is not a requirement, and in my
opinion, not even desirable. It doesn't improve your edge, and the
increased kinetic energy may help the wood flex away from an improperly
placed gouge, starting a chatter pattern. You position your tool _firmly_
on a close toolrest, set the heel so it touches the wood as it comes round,
then move the handle until the edge enters the wood before advancing in the
direction of cut. As you become more familiar with the cutting angle for
your gouge of preference, you'll be able to start the nose directly. To
visualize, rotate the piece by hand and take a few shavings to see what's
working.

I've tried higher speeds, and I don't see any reason you would ever
use them - other than for buffing or sanding. This thing goes up to
3900 RPM. I've used the bottom two speeds. The first thing I created
was a miniature column - a doll house sized replica of the columns
holding our porch up. And as the speed increased, so did the whipping
of the part. It also seems to aggravate the consequences of a
misplaced cut. And for roughing out 8" tree blanks, even the slowest
speed of 500 RPM seems none too slow...

Oh yes, rubbing the bevel doesn't mean at right angles to it. That's
chopping. Rubbing parallel to the point of contact gives you your best
shaving, one with a clean exit. Depending on your gouge choice you may
strive for a continuous twisted shaving, produced when you're shearing,
versus dust and shave when you're chopping. Let the rotating wood do the
work by coming to your edge, don't push the tool.

Having a new toy sitting in the garage pretty much precluded reading
anything on the subject, I'm one of those stubborn, diehard, figure it
out the hard way kinda people. ;-) So I pretty much discovered the
tool angle deal on my own. On the first turning I played with each
tool and experimented with it's behavior. It brought a smile to my
face when the scrapings turned to ribbons of wood shooting out like a
fountain - "Hey, this is pretty neat." Pressure on the tool is
*definitely* not needed - and would probably result in gouging, hangs,
tool breakage and at minimum, bending of thin work pieces.

After the column experiment, I moved on to a lidded vessel turned from
a green cherry limb. As it was kind of intuitive what each tool was
designed to accomplish, I practiced leveling, beading, parting,
rounding, etc. It turned out pretty well and I plan to post a pix to
a.b.p.w. later today - look for it!

I am amazed at the power and heart the little Jet mini lathe
exhibited. With this huge misshapen limb spinning precariously in
it's jaws, I have yet to have the lathe even hint at slowing or
stalling.

My last observation is this - What A Mess! There are ribbons of wood
under, around and on top of everything within 10 feet! I would be
most interested in other's ideas of dust/ribbon control! I have a DC
for the all the flat woodworking tools, but there is not dust port on
the lathe. ;-) I had to keep brushing piles of wood from under the
lathe bed, for fear they would choke off the cooling air to the motor!

Now that I have some experience with these things, I can read up on
the subject and better understand what the writer is explaining.

Thanks for the information!


Greg G.