Turning tools

Re: Turning tools

pete

>depends on what your turning..

your right youll get a million different answers..

good luck

Re: Turning tools

Fred Holder

>With a Jet Mini Lathe you can get by with one of the three piece Pen turning sets from Crown Tools and others. The set consists of a gouge, a skew, and a parting tool. Those will take care of your pen turning. For bowls, you will need something like a 3/8" bowl gouge and a fairly heavy duty round nose scraper. I like the Robert Sorby scraper with its half round side and about 1/4" thick and 1-1/2" wide. With those tools you can do most of the work that you can do on the mini lathe. I'm not sure, however, whether those short little pen turning tools are long enough for sharpening in the Oneway jig system.

Those tools can get you started and then in a year or two you'll discover you have a lot more tools, but only use 3 or 4 of them regularly.

Welcome to turning and lots of luck.

Re: Turning tools

Leo Van Der Loo

>Hi john

John how far is Barry from you, about a good hours drive ? ( I think ) Unless you have some other store in your area, Busy Bee has a store in Barry, and they have on special a 5 pc and a 6 pc Robert Sorby turning set, they are a good basic set, the 6 pc has 3/4'roughing 3/8"spindle 3/8"bowl 1/2"scraper 1/8" parting and 3/4" skew tools, the 5 pc has no bowl gouge and the skew is a 1/2" rectangle instead of the 3/4" oval skew, they also have a 5 pc HSS (better chinese) boxed set, when I was in their store last time, it is not in my latest catalog, it was selling for something like $70 or $80.- if I remember that right.

Anyway those sets cover the gambit I would say, and Busy Bee and Lee Valley have more tools if you need them.

Have fun and take care

Leo V

Re: Turning tools

RonZ

>I agree with Fred's sage advice but let me offer up a few changes. Unless you're only doing pens, you might want to get the reguar size tools for pens and spindle work. That would be a 3/8" detail gouge, 1/2" rolled edge skew, and a parting tool of your choice. Either a standard 1/8", Chris Stott style thin 1/16" or a 1/4" parting/beading tool. A 3/4" rough gouge would be helpful but most small items can be made round with the 3/8" gouge. As far as bowl work, instead of a wide bowl scraper, I would suggest a 3/4" heavy duty domed scraper. You can grind the side for bowls and it will allow for box making, too. As far as brands I would rate them as follows: #1 Henry Taylor - but pricy. #2 Hamlet or Packard[same thing] this IMHO is the best tool for your dollar, Sorby - while on the same level as Hamlet, it costs more. Unless you really have to have handles with a brass tip. #3 Crown - they are economical and much better than Chinese HSS but definitely does not hold an edge long and is a softer HSS.

The above opinions expressed is what works for me and what I use in my daily turning. Perhaps something else will work better with the way you work.