Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

deadam

>imho, it ain't the tool--it's the tool user that makes a good cut ...

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Sean Troy

>With the second bevel, you have much less chance of crushing the wood fiber giving you a much cleaner cut. Freehand sharpening a gouge can give you the same results. It just takes a little practice. Good luck, Sean

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Mark Kauder

>IMHO you can get the same effect with any gouge ground that way. Better yet, look at the convex grind gouge that Russ Fairfield has posted in the Grind Library.

Mark

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Peter Teubel

>Ditto.

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Joe Herrmann

>The Mahoney gouge is just ground so you can make a continious sweep around the bottom of the bowl. I took a class with Mike last summer and I must say that getting the bottom third of the bowl was much easier with his grind. However, you can grind a regular bowl gouge to do the same thing yourself. It has a 50 degree bevel and the wings are not swept back.

Joe

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Doug Trembath

>Mike showed me his gouge a few years back during a class at CSUSA. The first time I saw it, I thought it had one wing swept back, the one on the right, if you view it looking down on the gouge if it's pointing away from you with the flute up. It seemed to me that it was much steeper than 50 degrees at that time, as well. Later, when I saw the one he used at a demo, I saw that it wasn't swept back on either wing. I asked him about it, and he didn't seem to remember it being swept back at all. He said it must have been a result of sharpening.

In the meantime, I had ground a new "U" fluted gouge into the profile I thought I had seen, and use it all the time now for finish cuts on bowls.

Very little torn grain, and a very smooth finish is achieveable, but the gouge definitely has a learning curve. Then again, in woodturning, what doesn't? I like the sweep on the leading edge, and grind it with a really steep bevel.

YMMV, however.

Doug Trembath

Studio in the Woods

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Don Orr

>We had Luke Mann do a demo at our club a while back and he uses a swept back grind on the outside and a more "traditional" grind on the inside with a relief or secondary bevel ground at the base of the primary bevel to reduce damage to the wood from the trailing edge. I have been using this approach since then with excellant results. It makes it very easy to do a finish cut all the way from the rim to the bottom in a single pass. There is a little learning curve since you actually use the left side wing of the gouge in a fairly steep cutting angle but the finish is real nice as long as you ride the bevel. I don't really know what the Mahoney gouge is, but from reading this thread it sounds a lot like what we learned from Luke.

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Joe Fleming

>Dick,

Others have said as much, but please remember that a gouge has four important characteristics: 1-Flute shape; 2-Grind; 3-Metal composition; 4-Handle.

I believe Mike's finishing gouge is a 1/2" Hamlet gouge. Hamlet flutes are parabolic in shape and the steel on this one is the 2030. The handle is a standard Hamlet handle.

As far as the grind is concerned, you can grind most any gouge to similar angles for these kinds of cuts. there is nothing magic in Mike's gouge other than the initial grind is set up for you.

If you want to really master using a gouge to turn at the bottom of the bowl, any gouge with a steep bevel will work. YOU need to learn to repeatably grind the tool, however, or you will not maste the technique. For example, I have three main bowl gouges: 1/2" bar (Sorby) with a 40 degree bevel and the heel ground away; 5/8" bar (Sorby) with a 40 degree bevel and the heel ground away; and a 7/8" bar (Sorby) with an almost 90 degree bevel for going across the bottom of deep bowls when the handle is almost straight out of the bowl. I regrind this one every time I turn a new bowl to get the needed angle for that bowl. In other words, I typically use three different gouges to make the finished cuts on my bowls. FYI-I have rehandled all of them with Trent Bosch handles filled with lead shot.

For any bowl, the angle of the bevel needed depends on the geometry of the bowl. For deep bowls, thicker tools are often needed to minimize vibration once the tool gets extended. For bowls where the radius is much greater than the depth, the standard 40 degree bevel might do the whole bowl.

Mike's grind geometry MIGHT work for you to make one sweeping pass through the whole bowl, but it might not. It all depends on the geometry of your bowl. It works for him because of the bowls he typically turns. It wouldn't work for the bowls that Stuart Batty turns (tall and narrow).

The MORAL: No matter what signature tool you buy (Mahoney, Ellsworth, Jordan, Mortimer, Irish, etc.) you need to learn why that grind works, when it doesn't, and how the flute shape changes the tools' cutting edge geometry given a selected grind. You need to also learn to repeatably grind the desired geometry to maintain consistent results, whether this is with a jig or free-hand.

Joe Fleming - San Diego

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Arch

>Good discussions by knowledgeable turners. I wonder how much the grinds affect the prices of gouges. If significant, a line of unground and unhandled steel bars with various flute shapes and quality metals might be affordable and desirable. Arch

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Joe Fleming

>Arch,

I like Mike Mahoney a lot and I am not trying to take money out of his pocket. He is very knowledgeable about tools and their effectiveness. I believe he personally sharpens the gouges with his signature grinds. As for price comparisons, you can easily do it with a Craft Supply catalog.

You pay a few extra dollars for having a special grind put on your tool for you, but if you don't understand how to reproduce the grind, or why it is good for a particular cut, then it is just another wasted tool. Build your knowledge before you acquire the tool! To that end, you may actually like the Stuart Batty/Mike Mahoney bowl turning DVD. It is excellent and explains how Mike and Stuart approach turning a bowl differently. They also explain their particular grinds. Well worth the money.

Joe Fleming - San Diego

Re: Any opinions on Mike Mahoney finishing gouge?

Arch

>Joe.

Thanks for the advice. I, too, don't begrudge paying for a 'signature gouge' by a recognized turner. Many of these tools are real advances and/or help in special use. The extra cost can be determined from catalogs, but what I wondered about was how much of the cost of a quality standard line gouge involves factory grinding. I meant to suggest that since we have to sharpen the edges, we could grind whatever bevels we want, but not the flute shapes. I believe that if someone can learn to turn wood he can learn to grind (and sharpen) steel. Of course, he might not want to. Arch

Re: sharpening for tools

Joe Fleming

>I find it interesting that people who labor over mirror-honed edges on their bench planes and bench chisels, hand-wave the sharpening of their turning tools.

As you say, sharpening your turning tools is as essential to turning as how to make a cut with your gouge. There is one difference though. A joiner that pushes his/her #7 all day might cut a total of a mile of wood. That assumes that they use the plane for a solid 4 hours. That is a lot of hard work. A turner, on the other hand, turning a 3" spindle at 2000rpm will cut a mile of wood in just over 3 minutes.

A turner, even a hobbiest, needs to learn to sharpen. A weekend wood joiner will likely not use their plane for 4 total hours in many months. I'll be honest, I haven't sharpened any of my bench plane irons in more than a year except my #65 low angle. I sometimes use it to clean up the edges of my square bowls or to alter the shape of them.

Joe Fleming - San Diego