# Need sharpening and "coring" tips



## Thorn495 (Feb 28, 2014)

Hi. I just got a lathe last week (a Rikon 70-100 for $299). Then I got some Harbor Freight turning tools for $70 and ordered a Barracuda chuck for $160. Now it seems like I need a good sharpening system. I looked around at all sorts of YouTube videos and read forums, webpages about sharpening. Out of the videos on YouTube I saw, I liked the way the wood sprayed like silly string from this one turner named Dave (sales the D-Way tools). He had a sharpening video where he was using those BCN type of wheels on a bench grinder. I can't really afford those ($230+), but I saw a clearance sale on a Wood River one at woodcraft.com, and went ahead and ordered it ($139). There's a positive review for it here: 

http://blog.woodcraft.com/2010/07/woodriver-diamond-grinding-wheel/

I hope it's the right wheel for sharpening wood turning tools. I also don't have a bench grinder yet. I was thinking of putting the wheel on the lathe and using the tool rest to sharpen since the lathe is somewhat variable speed... Is that a dumb, cheapskate idea?

I'll probably end up with an 8" bench grinder and a Wolverine system someday soon. That's the way to go, right?

Now, I mainly got the lathe for making birdhouses/feeders from fallen trees/branches. I also have over 90 bowling pins that I've been making into birdhouses and hollowing them out with a plunge router using a jasper circle jig base plate. I had an opportunity to try hollowing one on a lathe and it seemed a little faster paced than the router approach. I'd really like to figure out a way to core the bowling pins like some turners I've seen do with bowl coring types of tool systems. That would save time and be less to cut out of the middle. In order to hollow the pins, I'd be playing with end grain, rock maple. So that dulls the tools pretty fast. Any good suggestions for bowling pin hollowing?


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

You ask 5 different woodworkers how to sharpen a tool and youll get 10 different answers, there isnt really a one size fits all. As far as the wheel you ordered goes, well, its pretty hard to mess up a grinding wheel, so you should be fine using it. As far as what to mount it in, if you get creative sure, you should be able to mount in on your lathe, honestly, just get a grinder:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_496567-5201...pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=bench+grinder&facetInfo=
$116, brand new, with variable speed, and you can find 8 inch grinders used for a fraction of that

Cant help you with the coring, ive never tried it. If i were to run blind into it, id find a way to mount the pin in a chuck on the headstock and use a forestner in a chuck on the tailstock, just plunge that way


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

Wow a lot of questions. For sharpening it's hard to beat the Oneway system with a bench grinder. I've used all sorts of systems and this is the way I go. You don't need a CBN wheel. They are nice but you can do a lot of sharpening with a white aluminum oxide wheel or spluge a little and get a Blue wheel which holds up better. The trick is simply learning to have a light touch and controlling the grind so you get a well ground edge. Go to www.youtube.com and type in john60lucas/sharpening and you will find my videos on sharpening.
You can hollow out end grain turnings like bowling pins or limb sections fairly easily cutting from the center out using a tool similar to the John Jordan tools. http://www.johnjordanwoodturning.com/John_Jordan_Woodturning/Tools_and_More.html 
On a lathe that small you could use a steady rest to hold something like the bowling pins for hollowing. I think they would chatter and vibrate too much when held by the small end. The easiest way to hollow would be to use a large Forestner style bit but your lathes miniumum speed would be too great to use a large bit.


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

It's CBN (cubic boron nitride) not BCN and the review that you linked to is for a diamond wheel. You do not want to get the diamond wheel. While the CBN wheels are all the rage right now, they are not necessary for getting a nicely sharpened tool. It is interesting that you got the cheapest lowest quality tools that can be found anywhere and then got the fanciest most expensive sharpening system.

Putting the wheel on the lathe is a very bad idea. You are not sharpening lawnmower blades -- turning tools need to be very precisely sharpened or else you will have a crappy cutting edge that might be OK for a lawnmower, but not for cutting wood.

The overall best value in a sharpening system is the Rikon eight inch grinder with aluminum oxide grinding wheels. Woodcraft frequently has it on sale for just over $100. Add a Oneway Wolverine grinding jig and you will be good to go. After you wear out the aluminum oxide wheels and know quite a bit more about sharpening your tools, you might want to consider moving up to a CBN wheel.

Don't let the glamor of wood shavings flying through the air be what leads you to making the wrong decisions. The long streamers come from turning freshly cut green wood, not old hard dry rock maple bowling pins -- those just give you dust.

Coring and hollowing are two very different things. What you are describing is hollowing. The best way to start is by drilling a hole with either a gun drill or a Forstner bit and then using basic hollowing tools to remove as much material as you wish. I should point out that the mini lathe won't work for hollowing unless you get a bed extension for the lathe. Also, the motor is a bit wimpy unless you take it very slow and don't try to hog out the wood. Once you reach over the tool rest about seven inches, tool control is more difficult and the tool might begin to chatter.

Don't forget about your lungs while you are buying stuff. Respiratory protection is critical. Other essential safety gear includes goggles and face shield.


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## Thorn495 (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks for ya'lls advice. I ended up getting an 8" Delta variable speed at Lowes. I did make a jig that worked out well for the spindle gouges.

I like the even Steven cut all the way around.

I even tried doing the vari-jig with a drum set accessory. I'll see how they cut tomorrow.


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

There is an old woodturning saying about sharpening tools, "if you can see the edge, then you don't have an edge".









what it means is a sharp edge has zero width and therefore doesn't reflect any light. An edge that is not sharp is rough and will show glint under bright lighting. I have circled two areas where the glint is quite prominent which means that you have a dull edge. Additionally, the bevel surface should be very smooth. It appears that the bevel on your gouges are very rough.









This is a picture that I took of one of my Crown bowl gouges where I show the shape of an Ellsworth (AKA, Irish) swept back style grind. I sharpened it using my Tormek wet grinder and have the jig settings shown. You should be able to get a comparable grind using the Delta dry grinder. The two things to note are the edge doesn't have any glint and the bevel is a smooth continuous surface.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Thorn495 said:


> Thanks for ya'lls advice. I ended up getting an 8" Delta variable speed at Lowes. I did make a jig that worked out well for the spindle gouges.
> 
> I like the even Steven cut all the way around.
> 
> I even tried doing the vari-jig with a drum set accessory. I'll see how they cut tomorrow.


Slick little angle setup youve got there, and im glad to see you went with an actual grinder. As mentioned though, looks like those edges need a slight bit more work, but youve taken a step in the right direction!


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

You bought a $299 dollar lathe then, $70 for your turning tools,then $160 for a chuck and then $139 for something to sharpen your $70 dollar tools.Do you see anything wrong with this picture?


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

Reread my post and I seemed a bit harsh.I have owned lathes up to 12' OC and costing thousands of dollars.Basically a lathe is a piece of equipment with a motor attached to spin a piece of wood.It can be very basic or very intricate and achieve good results.The most important parts are the tools you use .They should be the best you can afford in my opinion.I want them to be able to make a clean cut and hold a good edge.I want to spend my time that I have turning wood with good results in place of being aggrevated by cheap tools giving half assed results and needing the edge trued all the time.I still commend you for wanting to try your hand at turning and wish you well.Read up and do your research .It could save you some money in the long run and aggrevation in the short run.
JMHO


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## Thorn495 (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks for your work on that photo and the heads up, Bill. It looks as though I didn't grind them long enough. The bottom (crappy) part of that one tool is part of the old bevel I grinded with a tiny grinding wheel on the end of a impact driver, lol. It was a lot worse than those cuts.

As far as people talking about the cheap tools, I saw decent reviews for them on the Harbor Freight website and since I'm starting out, I thought it'd be wise to buy them instead of some fancier ones that I probably would've mutilated with a grinding bit. This gives me a chance to see what tools I like using and upgrade someday eventually. I think I do need a hollowing tool messing with the bowling pins and going in about 4" deep.

I'm pretty sure I meant that I wanted to hollow them by means of coring them. Maybe I have the definitions messed up, but I'd like to make a wider cut at the wider part of the pin and cut at an angle till the cut meets in the middle and cuts out a chunk of the middle instead of the extra work of removing even more wood in the middle. Does that make sense?

The tool rest that came with the lathe is a little beefy, so I tried using an extra cymbal boom arm I had and it worked out as a small rest. It didn't move around or anything. I mostly used a round nose scraper, making scooping cuts from the middle to the outside.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I agree with buying cheap tools to learn to sharpen, but after they wear out you should buy high quality ones to replace them. A laser guided hollower would be ideal, but your work is small enough you could get it done without one.


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

Johannes Michelsen makes a handheld coring tool for doing straight in plunge cuts, but unless you have some particular need for using the cores, it's a major waste of time and money. It is much faster to just waste the wood with a bowl gouge. It is also a good way to get a serious elbow or shoulder injury if you are not a big strong guy (this wouldn't apply to your current lathe which would probably stall if you tried to core anything). For making nested bowls, Oneway and McNaughton both make coring rigs if you are working with very expensive exotic wood and don't want to waste any of it. Those tools are very very expensive. BTW, your wimpy lathe is not up to the task of handling any kind of coring. When you get a big boy lathe like something in the Powermatic 3520 class or larger and are doing some serious turning then a coring rig might possibly be something that you want to consider.

The tool rest on your lathe definitely is NOT beefy although it might seem that way to you at this juncture.

Folks who buy things from Harbor Freight don't have high expectations and most of the time their tools live down to those expectations, so it's no wonder that they get good reviews. Just to be clear, they aren't junk by any means. But, they aren't the same quality as the Sorby, Crown, Thompson, P&N, D-Way, etc. Heck, I might even buy one if I wanted to re-purpose it for a specialty task.

BTW, we all start at the same place. My first efforts at sharpening were far worse than your first attempt. I had been flat woodworking for 25 years before getting hooked on turning and it was like a completely different world.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

Coring makes nesting bowls. Hollowing simply removes wood and makes shavings.


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

Did not intend to offend you with my post.Been there done that .I started out 40 some years ago in my garage with used Craftsman tools bought at auctions and yard sales and making small items to take to craft shows and flea markets.Ended up with a 3,000 sf custom shop with all of the high end equipment I could ever want including a 15 x 144 custom Vega lathe.
I understand your concern about the sharpening.It is an art in itself with turning tools.My point was that you can turn some nice pieces on a crap lathe if you have good tools.You can buy the best lathe in the world and not do good work with cheap tools.they only tend to frustrate you and make the work more of a chore than enjoyable.I have a 1 1/4 Sorby roughing gouge that started out with probably 12" or so of metal and is now maybe 5".You don't ruin them.Somtimes you make mistakes and just regrind them.
I would use the tools you have to learn how to properly grind and buy a better set to actually use.A light touch on a slow wheel is what's needed and some coordination.An 8" wheel on a 1750 rpm grinder does very well for me.
Just remember that you can sink a lot of money into jigs and fixtures ,grinders and all kinds of other things but the bottom line is practice with the basics.Learn them well .A Tormec wheel and all the other accessories you can buy will not substitute for hours on the lathe.


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## Thorn495 (Feb 28, 2014)

No offense taken, mako1. I'm able to take woodturning noob' criticism. I did take some advice with some fancier tools though. I got a Sorby Hollowmaster and an Easy Wood Tool's Hollower No. 1 (on the way). I accomplished this with the Hollowmaster:


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## thenodemaster (Jun 14, 2015)

I was reading this post and the cheap bashing that was going on and figured I would jump into this one. I started out on a Harbor Freight lathe (see Frankenlathe in my photos) back in 2011 since I wanted to try something new and was not sure how well I would like it. I ended up putting on a 2HP motor and went through the motions of teaching myself since I have no one here in BFE to teach me. That lathe paid for itself in less than a year and was a great tool to learn on and figure out what I liked without the pain of what I was seeing the decent brands going for. FOr what I paid and what I got out of it, I am not sorry for spending $600 in tools and attachments and upgrades--including buying the lathe--back in 2011. I have, however, retired Frankenlathe as I have outgrown it and needed something with a little more weight than 130lbs + a cast iron table saw wing and bought the Grizzly G0694 a few weeks ago. I can vouch for you get what you pay for, but, when you don't have near as much money as curiosity, sometimes, Harbor Freight and the like are your friends. Incidently, I did have to scrap the 8" grinder I got from them after barely using the darn thing as the vibration from the spindle was simply too much to work with. Got a nice Delta.

Sometimes it is simply better to go cheap at first so you aren't pinched in the wallet (or by the wife) if you don't like it or are short on funds. Gotta find a happy medium.


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## thenodemaster (Jun 14, 2015)

Thorn495 said:


> No offense taken, mako1. I'm able to take woodturning noob' criticism. I did take some advice with some fancier tools though. I got a Sorby Hollowmaster and an Easy Wood Tool's Hollower No. 1 (on the way). I accomplished this with the Hollowmaster:


+1 on Easy Wood Tools. :thumbsup: They are what kept me from chucking the whole setup in the beginning. I bought a similar cheap starter set from Rockler and was frustrated because the harbor freight grinder I had kept overheating things.

I know there are a lot of diehards who criticize the Easywood tools, but I always say: use what works for you. There is always another way of skinning a cat...or butchering wood. :yes:. It was using the Easywood Tools that allowed me to recoup all my initial costs in less than a year after buying the lathe after I found people wanting to purchase my pens and other work. Adding to that: with the track record of income from it, I was able to convince the wife to let me drop the $3000+ on my Grizzly. Using the Harbor Freight lathe since 2011, I would say I definitely got my money's worth.:cool2:


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't like the easy wood tools because they cost too much. I recently started turning, and with the help of a Oneway wolverine jig sharping was easy. The easy wood cutters cost a fortune and don't last long. There is a place for carbide cutters, but they are not a cure all wonder tool.


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## thenodemaster (Jun 14, 2015)

hwebb99 said:


> I don't like the easy wood tools because they cost too much. I recently started turning, and with the help of a Oneway wolverine jig sharping was easy. The easy wood cutters cost a fortune and don't last long. There is a place for carbide cutters, but they are not a cure all wonder tool.


Never meant to say that they were the end all, be all tools. I am saying that they work for me and I have found the cost a bit higher than most individual tools, but, being American made, and for someone who has not had any assistance or teachers available, I found they suit me fine and I get pretty good life out of them. Some do not like them and some do. I merely mention them because of how well they work for me--especially when I was first starting out.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I wasn't referring only to your post. Some people do think they are cure all tools. I think they are worth mentioning. I use my homemade square rougher to get bowls round because it is more sturdy than my 1/2 bowl gouge. After the bowl is round I prefer a bowl gouge. If you do get carbide tools I recommend you make them yourself. Mine cost me only the cost of the cutter.


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## thenodemaster (Jun 14, 2015)

If you have the means and ability to make your own tools, you will certainly save money and I would do it as well. Sadly, while I may have the finances for it, my time just is not there for it. I barely have enough time to get in front of the lather with working full time for the man, working part time at my own small company, being a full time student working on my Masters Degree, and being present for the wife and junior--so, anything that speeds up whatever I need so I can enjoy it, I am all for.

Even though I am nuts about Easy Wood Tools, I have been finding as of late where they fall short and do plan on working on learning traditional turning tools but plan to wait on that until after I graduate early next year.

Rock on!...Turn on?


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## thenodemaster (Jun 14, 2015)

hwebb99 said:


> I wasn't referring only to your post. Some people do think they are cure all tools. I think they are worth mentioning. I use my homemade square rougher to get bowls round because it is more sturdy than my 1/2 bowl gouge. After the bowl is round I prefer a bowl gouge. If you do get carbide tools I recommend you make them yourself. Mine cost me only the cost of the cutter.


I can certainly understand. Now that I have a proper lathe, I am hoping to get some decent gouges and get back to getting my technique down. Just wish I had someone nearby to look over my shoulder and give a bit of coaching help. Sadly, no one in Hemet.


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