# Grinding a bowl gouge



## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

What grind angles do you guys like on your bowl gouges? I'm pretty green when it comes to grinding gouges and determining what angles work best. 

I've been using a 3/8" bowl gouge that's ground to probably 50 degrees or so, which cuts nicely but is hard to transition from the sides of a bowl to the bottom. 

I recently bought a 5/8" Oneway Mastercut gouge, and I decided to put a side grind on it. The bevel at the tip is about 60 degrees I guess, and it seems to cut pretty well. Only got to use it once or twice before I sold my Jet lathe though. New lathe is shipping out Monday. 

How do you guys grind your gouges?


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## NCPaladin (Aug 7, 2010)

I think mine is about the same as yours, maybe more like 55* than 50*.
You may want to add a second bevel in order to scoot around the transition.
The second bevel is as shown in the pic here. Shortening the length of the bevel allows a smaller turning radius.
https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/p/129/5853/Hamlet-Glenn-Lucas-GL4-5-8"-Bowl-Gouge


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## saculnhoj (May 18, 2015)

Most I've seen and used are in the 50 to 60 degree nose angle. I have one that I ground at 40. The transition area is always difficult to rub the bevel. Make your bowls rounder and you don't have that area. The shape we fondly call a dog bowl has that abrubt side to bottom transition area. If you insist on this shape here is a trick. Keep the handle of the bowl gouge higher than the cutting tip. This is what you always should do with a scraper to keep from getting a catch. A bowl gouge becomes a scraper when you aren't rubbing the bevel so if you start your cut and as you get closer to the transition area lift the handle so it's higher than the cutting edge and simple scrape this area until you can again rub the bevel on the bottom. I know the pro's may say not to do this but I did for many years until I learned other techniques and it works. 
Now if I make a bowl like that I use a Hunter #5 carbide tool. I use it with the face of the tool facing the transition area and do what I call a shear scrape. Cleans it up nicely.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

I've measured the bevel angles on every edge tool that I have, mostly carving tools.
The rougher the work, the more pressure on the edge, the bigger the bevel angle.

In the past, I used to maintain a large (12?) set of full-sized Sorby lathe tools for a friend. 
Several bowl gouges, all 60*, so I kept them that way.

General makes a swing-arm protractor for measuring the tip angles on drill bits.
Works equally well for wood carving tools, mine are all in the range of 30* down to 12*
Yet to see one but I'm told that a digital measuring protractor is $20 or less these days.


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

saculnhoj said:


> Most I've seen and used are in the 50 to 60 degree nose angle. I have one that I ground at 40. The transition area is always difficult to rub the bevel. Make your bowls rounder and you don't have that area. The shape we fondly call a dog bowl has that abrubt side to bottom transition area. If you insist on this shape here is a trick. Keep the handle of the bowl gouge higher than the cutting tip. This is what you always should do with a scraper to keep from getting a catch. A bowl gouge becomes a scraper when you aren't rubbing the bevel so if you start your cut and as you get closer to the transition area lift the handle so it's higher than the cutting edge and simple scrape this area until you can again rub the bevel on the bottom. I know the pro's may say not to do this but I did for many years until I learned other techniques and it works. Now if I make a bowl like that I use a Hunter #5 carbide tool. I use it with the face of the tool facing the transition area and do what I call a shear scrape. Cleans it up nicely.


What's the advantage of grinding a bowl gouge to 40 degrees? Cleaner cut?


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## saculnhoj (May 18, 2015)

Yes. the more acute the angle the cleaner the cut. However you give up being able to cut to the bottom of steep sided bowls when you have a more acute angle. 40 degree will get you to most curved bowls. 60 is good for steeper sided bowls. 
I have often used my spindle gouge for some areas of a bowl where I have tearout problems. it is ground to 35 degrees. 
What I use mostly today for those kind of problems is the Hunter carbide tools. they are a cupped cutter. The outside angle or what we call the bevel is about 82 degrees. However the actual cutting edge is about 27 to 30 degrees. Depending on which tool you use you can reach the bottom of very steep sided bowls and still be cutting wood with a 27 degree edge. Here is just one of my videos on the Hunter tools. I have quite a few of them and you can find the rest on Youtube.


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## Woodychips (Oct 3, 2015)

I measured my gouges yesterday because honestly, I had no idea. Turns out the majority are at 50*. Those are used the most for outside the bowl and the first 2/3 of the inside. The rest are at 60*. Those are for the transition area inside the bottom of of the bowl. 

I belong to the KISS theory. (Keep it simple, stupid). I did buy a Oneway vari-grind setup all long time ago. Takes too long to setup when production turning. Now I just keep my tool rest set and hand grind everything. A single roll from flute edge to flute edge and I'm done. 

My roughing gouges are done by hand as well but without the tool rest. On those I grind around 45* and sweep back on the sides. Not the big long side sweep that a lot of tools come with. My side grind is roughly half the length. I found that a long sharp grind goes dull quicker than a blunter grind.


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## saculnhoj (May 18, 2015)

I also have several sharpening videos that show how I sharpen each tool. www.youtube.com then type in john60lucas/sharpening


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