How To Use A Wood Lathe Gouge

Scrapers are used to remove the marks left by your bowl gouge.

How to use a wood lathe gouge. Look at the flat outside surface of a fresh bowl blank on the lathe. Mainly used to turn the spindles which involve stocks longer than its width and is placed in the lathe parallel to the lathes turning axis. A roughing gouge has a tang which isnt designed to take as much downward pressure as a rod.

They are square not round. The lathe tool rest needs to be positioned relatively close to the wood bowl blank to give yourself a leverage advantage with the bowl gouge handle. Rotate the bowl gouge to the side slightly so the side of the cutting edge engages the wood.

In fact chairmaker David Douyard uses the roughing gouge 95 of the time when he is turning. Turn the lathe back on and hold the paper lightly against the wood moving it back and forth to prevent removing too much wood from one area of. To get rid of the center material you should be making very gradual cuts.

An angle finder would be a good investment so that you can verify the angles to be sharpened. Many of his ladderback and Windsor chair spindles can be shaped from beginning to end with the roughing gouge. Observe how much material is coming off the tip.

This tool is incredibly versatile and capable of doing very fine work. Once thats done screw the face plate into the live head of your wood lathe. Rest your little finger and the back of your palm on the tool rest located in the center of your wood lathe machine.

You should start hollowing the bowl from center to outside. A woodturning scraper scrapes using a burr so it should be kept very sharp to work well. A good black felt pen to color in the tip of your turning chisels to see where the grinding wheel makes contact with the gouge.