Almost a year ago I noticed a new tool on the market, the Ci1 Easy
Rougher ( http://www.easywoodtools.com/ ), like many I was
unconvinced. However, I did know of a similar tool some bowl turners
in southern Oregon use. Over the winter I discussed this tool with one
of those turners and learned why they had developed the “Big Ugly
Tool”.

When I went to “Super Wednesday” (Craft Supplies annual sale) and the
Utah Woodturning Symposium, I had a chance to watch the Easy Rougher
in use, talk to the designer of the tool and try the tool for myself.

I walked away so impressed I bought one for myself.

If you aren’t familiar with the tool, it’s made from a heavy bar (~1/2
inch) stock of 300 series stainless steel, with a large handle and a
four sided carbide cutter. The tool is designed to be presented to the
wood horizontal. While the cutting action is generally considered a
“scrape”, the sharpness of the carbide results in cutting large
shavings off the wood. It also has an optional plastic shield.

So far I have tried it on two bowl blanks, both of these were cut to
an octagon (i.e. 8 sided) by a chain saw. They were not band-sawed to
almost round. The first blank was a piece of heavy wet Big Leaf Maple.
The Maple was so wet I ended up with sap everywhere (see note below).
The 2nd blank was dry Plum.

With both blanks I found that the Easy Rougher did its job, it knocked
the corners off the wood and made the blank round. The big advantage
the Easy Rougher has, over my big Bowl Gouge, is where the force from
the roughing goes. With a Bowl Gouge, much of the force goes into the
tool rest but the rest goes into your hands.

Since the Easy Rougher is presented to the wood level, most the force
goes into the tool rest, not into your hands. Most of the force on
your hands is the effort it takes to maintain the Easy Rougher as
level. As a result, your hands see less force. This means less effort
on the Turners part. This lower effort makes it easy for the Turner to
do more, with less fatigue. It also means the Turners with various
issues (Arthritis, etc) can do more turning.

I found I had to restrict the “width” of the cut to less then ½ of the
cutting edge, or I would stall my lathe. I also found I had to not
feed too hard, or I would also stall the lathe. I noted that it was
easier to “over feed” this cutter then any of my Bowl Gouges.

I found that the optional shield is useful, when the blank is mostly
round and rounder. It does help reduce the amount of shavings that go
flying around the lathe, and all over the Turner. I did find that the
shield is almost useless during the early part of “knocking the
corners off”. This is because the vibration is so great the shield is
quickly vibrated off the tool. I could not get the screw on the shield
tight enough, during this phase, to keep the shield on.

I did continue to use the Easy Rougher after the blank was completely
rounded and ready to be turned into a bowl. At this point I started
switching between using the Easy Rougher and my Bowl Gouges.

I found that if I did deep cuts with the Easy Rougher, there was
considerably more tear-out then similar deep cuts with a Bowl Gouge.
If I reduced the force the Easy Rougher would leave an acceptable
rough turn finish.

I did find that the amount of effort it took for me to form the bowl
to be similar between the Easy Rougher and a Bowl Gouge. However,
consistently the Bowl Gouge gave a better finish.

I also found, that at least for my experience level with the Easy
Rougher, it was easier for me to get a good shape on the bowl, with a
Bowl Gouge then with the Easy Rougher. It might be that, with more
experience, I could get a good form with the Easy Rougher, but I would
still have to “clean up” the cuts with a gouge or shear scraper.

One thing I noticed, at both Super Wednesday and the Utah Symposium
the owner of Easy Tools was using a Tool Rest stop. That is a sleeve,
on the shaft of the Tool Rest; the helps hold the Tool Rest at the
specified height. The reason he does this is do to the force the Easy
Rougher puts on the Tool Rest, I noticed that my Tool Rest tended to
be forced down, during the roughing, no matter how much I tightened
the handle. So now I need to make myself some stops (I’ve had that on
my “Round-To-It” list for some time anyway)

TTFN
Ralph

Note: You do know that “back when” they used to harvest sap from Big
Leaf Maple for Maple Syrup, ask me how I know, and yes I was wearing a
full face mask