The Glaser Experience.
David Hammond, in Powder Springs GA
>Brown truck. Brown package. Three inches square, thirty inches long - straight from North Carolina's Packard Woodworks. Cut the tape and rip open the box, then find the contents wrapped in brown paper and more tape. Tear the corner, and unroll the tool: Glaser. Black shot filled shot peened alumminum, and cold hard 3/4 V15 steel. The tip is covered with more paper, and more tape. Unwrap the end of the tool, and a razor sharp edge sits waiting for use, gleaming. From the tip of the tool to the bottom of the handle, this new gouge doesn't even look like traditional bowl gouges: the handle is a solid, shot filled, shot peened alumminum, black and 1 1/4 in diameter, and the V-shaped flute is different, but very promising.
So, my Glaser came: wahoo! What a tool, what an awesome tool! Of all the things I've bought, this tool, besides upgrading from a Grizzly lathe to a VB36, is the single most detectable difference in my turning experience, in the ease and enjoyment of time spent at the lathe. I got the gouge this morning, but had to sit through a few college lectures before I could put the tool to use - and I just finished the trial run a few minutes ago, here are my comments:
The only other time I've been this floored about the performance of a tool, was when I saw TD's VB in action. For the test, I roughed out a peice of green beech with the chainsaw, some seventeen inches around, by about six inches thick. I just knocked the corners off with the chainsaw, and put it on the VB. I've never, never roughed out a bowl that easy! The gouge was perfect, in every way: the handle was heavy and stout, but comfortable, in weight, diameter, and feel. The cutting edge was razor sharp out of the box, and was still razor sharp after I finshed roughing the entire bowl. The new flute shape, for me anyway, was spectacular: I've heard all sorts of things about the V style flute, but fat shavings pouring across the shop was all the convincing I needed! The V shape, with it's tight radius at the bottom, I believe, sped up the shavings coming off the tool - they swept into that tight radius, and just flew across my shop. I sent shavings higher and farther than ever before. All told, I roughed out three bowls tonight: the beech, and two peices of maple. I touched up the edge with a slipstone, but it really didn't need it - after three roughed bowls, banging off corners and lots of hogging off wood, the gouge wasn't even beginning to get dull! I've got a 2060 Hamlet as well, and I noticed a slight difference in the Hamlet over my regular HSS tools, but this Glaser V15 steel is incredible. And, it's worth every penny of the two hundred and nine dollars I spent on it. It is truly the synergy of the entire tool, as Lyn has reported here, that makes this gouge so great - what can I say? If you've never picked up a Glaser, get one. You'll never look back.
I'm a Glaser believer now!
David Hammond
