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Bowl Gouge nose angles

L

LANKFORD

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Mar 21, 2006
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A standard bowl gouge has a nose angle of about 35 to 45 degrees I assume. The Ellsworth grind angle is 60 degrees. Other than trying to keep the bevel against the wood, is there other cautions I should be concerned about when using the Ellsworth grind. The nose angles sre so different I wonder if I may be getting into the twilight zone.
 
A typical bowl gouge when you buy it will have a bevel angle of around 60 degrees. It would be really tricky to try to use a bowl gouge with a 30 degree angle and it certainly would be difficult to maintain bevel contact on the outside of a bowl and darn near impossible on the inside of the bowl especially near the botton of the bowl. I suspect that perhaps you may be confused on how the angle is measured.

Bill
 
LANKFORD said:
The Ellsworth grind angle is 60 degrees. Other than trying to keep the bevel against the wood, is there other cautions I should be concerned about when using the Ellsworth grind.
Click to expand...
The grind allows for more versatility in cuts. It can be used for push, pull and shear cuts, but I would highly reccomend his video.
 
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Bill My bowls must be shallower than yours. I've been using the Stewart Batty grind of 45 degrees for the last few months to do the inside of my bowls and really like it. My normal bowl gouge is around 60 degrees like the one in the photo.
Of course 45 degrees does limit how steep you can make the sides of the bowl.
 
Cool, Steve except that the angle you show is not 60 degrees -- it is more like 120 degrees. However, after giving you an undeserved hard time about it, what you show is what a 60 degree angle looks like on the Ellsworth gouge. I found the sketch that I could not find earlier when I made my first post, so here it is.
 

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Maybe I have been listening to improper references to bevels. In the Bill Grumbine DVD he says his scrapers have a 30 degree bevel. However, the tool looks more like 70 degrees from level. Also the Oneway video says 35 degrees for a bowl guage. So maybe these guys are referencing the bevel to a vertical, not horizontal line as most do.
 
LANKFORD said:
So maybe these guys are referencing the bevel to a vertical, not horizontal line as most do.
Click to expand...
That causes a lot of confusion, as this thread shows.

The traditional / standard way to measure a bevel in all other areas is the included angle between the two cutting surfaces measured at the cutting edge. That's the method shown in Bill's diagram.
 
LANKFORD said:
Maybe I have been listening to improper references to bevels.
Click to expand...

Could be. Included angle versus complementary.

Most important thing to get from the discussion is that different people cut in different ways. As an old guy, I make the tools fit what I do, not the other way around. As a new kid, you pick your champion and try to imitate them. Remember, their grind suits their method. Different grind, different method. Advantage to having a turner talk once in a while, though your shavings can teach you a lot about turning in the privacy of your own home.

Don't make shavings fly, make them fall. Don't make sawdust at all. Cut the wood as it wishes to be cut, as Frank Pain said. It'll complain if it doesn't like it, and you'll feel the complaint in cutting pressure or see it in the shavings. If you can't quite get the presentation you want, try another tool first, grind as a last resort.
 
Bill's Sketch

Bill. I would have posted a copy of your sketch (that you posted several months ago) if you hadn't. I really do have a copy of it taped to the front of one of my grinders, for those times when brain fade sets in.
 
LANKFORD said:
Maybe I have been listening to improper references to bevels. In the Bill Grumbine DVD he says his scrapers have a 30 degree bevel. However, the tool looks more like 70 degrees from level. Also the Oneway video says 35 degrees for a bowl guage. So maybe these guys are referencing the bevel to a vertical, not horizontal line as most do.
Click to expand...
It would be nice if there were consistency, but there isn't. There are plenty of woodturners who probably were daydreaming during trig class in high school. This angle confusion doesn't usually confuse someone who has been turning for a while because they normally can figure out what Bill Grumbine really meant:D, but it can be a point of real confusion for a beginner. To me, it doesn't make much sense to talk about defining the angle by the amount of metal that is no longer there after shaping the edge. It seems more intuitive to think about the included angle between the edges of the steel. I will bet that those who define the angle on a scraper by the "air angle" in front of the edge don't do the same thing for a skew -- would they say that a skew has an angle of 40 degrees or 140 degrees? Air doesn't cut wood very well, but steel does so which is more important?

Bill
 
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