Glaser gouge shot removal

[Dave Landers]

Picked up a Glaser gouge yesterday. I'll try it first, but I am pretty sure I'm going to want to remove the shot from the handle. There's a plug in the bottom but it doesn't look easy to pry out, and I don't want to mess it up trying a bunch of things... What's the recommended method?

 

[robo hippy]

Never understood the concept of shot filled handles. As a production turner, that is just way too much weight to hang on to all day long... "The shot helps absorb vibration." Well, just move your tool rest closer! I would drill the cap out, and then make a wood plug. The metal in them is good.

robo hippy

 

[Lance Mirrer]

If that is a Glaser Hitec (Vs. an original Glaser) the company is still open and should be able to advise how to empty with the least damage.
Since Hitec is the recognized successor to Jerry Glaser, they can probably advise on the older tools too.

 

[hockenbery]

Picked up a Glaser gouge yesterday. I'll try it first, but I am pretty sure I'm going to want to remove the shot from the handle. There's a plug in the bottom but it doesn't look easy to pry out, and I don't want to mess it up trying a bunch of things... What's the recommended method?

View attachment 54477View attachment 54478

Don’t know if this is “recommended” but it worked for us.
Put the handle in a vice, put vice grips on the gouge, heat the gouge with a torch near the handle, twist and lift with the vice grips.
When the handle cools, dump the shot out of the hole where the gouge was.
Use thick CA to glue the gouge back in place.

I’m a fan of light handles.

QUOTE="robo hippy, post: 222658, member: 6586"]
Never understood the concept of shot filled handles
[/QUOTE] The idea was to dampen the shock of roughing. Best way to dampen shock is to let the tool do the work by developing better roughing technique.

 

[Dave Landers]

Never understood the concept of shot filled handles

Yeah, it just seems way too heavy. But someone thought it was a good idea, so I'm going to give it a chance before I remove the shot. I doubt I'll like it, but you never know till you try.

If that is a Glaser Hitec (Vs. an original Glaser)

Original

Don’t know if this is “recommended” but it worked for us.

Sounds like this is your recommendation Thanks!

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

I have a thought about the shot weighted handles. Robo described a pencil test a while back, hold a pencil against your flat grain turning and it'll only touch on the high spots. My theory is the tool bounces away from the work when you're turning against the grain (twice every revolution). I also think that tool bounce leaves micro tear outs. The tool bounce is obvious when a non-round blank is being rounded, not so obvious when amplitude of the bounce is only several thousandths of an inch.

My solution to prevent most of the tool bounce is very heavily weighted handles. One of these days I'll try to verify my theory by turning flat grain on my CNC lathe with rigidly mounted tools that can't bounce away from the turning.

 

[Neil S]

Never understood the concept of shot filled handles.

robo hippy

I’m a fan of light handles.

Best way to dampen shock is to let the tool do the work by developing better roughing technique.

Ditto!

 

[Bill Blasic]

I have about 85% Thompson handles, about 50-50 his early unweighted handles with foam covers and the current squarish weighted handles. I pick up a handled tool for what tool is in it at the moment and it really does not bother me if weighted or not for the most part. My preference is the round foam ones he no longer makes but I cannot imagine using the the Thompson SRG without the weighted handle.

 

[Bill T Tucker]

No need to worry so much about those Old Glasers and all that heavy shot...just send it to me and I'll be happy to "refurb" it for you

 

[Brian Gustin]

I have a thought about the shot weighted handles. Robo described a pencil test a while back, hold a pencil against your flat grain turning and it'll only touch on the high spots. My theory is the tool bounces away from the work when you're turning against the grain (twice every revolution). I also think that tool bounce leaves micro tear outs. The tool bounce is obvious when a non-round blank is being rounded, not so obvious when amplitude of the bounce is only several thousandths of an inch.

My solution to prevent most of the tool bounce is very heavily weighted handles. One of these days I'll try to verify my theory by turning flat grain on my CNC lathe with rigidly mounted tools that can't bounce away from the turning.

Hmm I would have to disagree.. if you were getting significant enough tool bounce to get a visible (with pencil) undulation, then your tool ain't sharp, or you're applying too much pressure/speed of cut into the wood with the tool.. I used to get lots of tool bounce and undulations (and sometimes visible tool marks after finish applied) until I figured out how to get my tools truly sharp, and how to properly hold the tools (like handling an egg, as opposed to my former "death grip") , and all those other fine control techniques that come with practice, study, and experience. Once I began to master those (Does one every truly master those things?) , the tool bounce issues diminished to the point of non-existence. Even with my SRG when roughing a whole log, once I figured out what sharp is, and how to correctly present the tool to the wood, I can easily rough a wildly wobbling whole log or branch one-handed with no bounce.

I could see weighted handles being useful in hollowing tools, I suppose - the extra weight helping to counter-balance having the tool overhang the rest, but for typical gouges (except maybe heavier bowl gouges that might overhang the rest more than most) one would not usually have much tool extension past the rest. IMHO, I only noticed the weight (or lack thereof) of the handles when selecting the tool from the rack, and my hollowing tools have 24 inch Hornbeam handles which are quite heavy..

 

[Doug Freeman]

Hmm I would have to disagree.. if you were getting significant enough tool bounce to get a visible (with pencil) undulation, then your tool ain't sharp, or you're applying too much pressure/speed of cut into the wood with the tool.. I used to get lots of tool bounce and undulations (and sometimes visible tool marks after finish applied) until I figured out how to get my tools truly sharp, and how to properly hold the tools (like handling an egg, as opposed to my former "death grip") , and all those other fine control techniques that come with practice, study, and experience. Once I began to master those (Does one every truly master those things?) , the tool bounce issues diminished to the point of non-existence. Even with my SRG when roughing a whole log, once I figured out what sharp is, and how to correctly present the tool to the wood, I can easily rough a wildly wobbling whole log or branch one-handed with no bounce.

I could see weighted handles being useful in hollowing tools, I suppose - the extra weight helping to counter-balance having the tool overhang the rest, but for typical gouges (except maybe heavier bowl gouges that might overhang the rest more than most) one would not usually have much tool extension past the rest. IMHO, I only noticed the weight (or lack thereof) of the handles when selecting the tool from the rack, and my hollowing tools have 24 inch Hornbeam handles which are quite heavy..

Ditto. Another cause of the undulations is too much bevel pressure, and at times it doesnt take much. As Stuart Batty says, don’t ride the bevel, float it.

@Doug Rasmussen, I like the idea of doing a test with a machine held cutter for comparison to hand held. The relevance is for bevel type cuts, not non bevel supported cuts. With hand held there are 2 degrees of freedom of movement - the wood and the tool. With cnc the tool cant move, only the wood. Interesting comparison.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I drilled a hole through. It's a soft aluminum plug.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

I would have to disagree.. if you were getting significant enough tool bounce to get a visible (with pencil) undulation, then your tool ain't sharp, or you're applying too much pressure/speed of cut into the wood with the tool..

Brian, you'll have to check with robo. I don't know the exact circumstance he was talking about when he mentioned the pencil test.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

I have about 85% Thompson handles, about 50-50 his early unweighted handles with foam covers and the current squarish weighted handles. I pick up a handled tool for what tool is in it at the moment and it really does not bother me if weighted or not for the most part. My preference is the round foam ones he no longer makes but I cannot imagine using the the Thompson SRG without the weighted handle.

My preference is for the thompson handles. I can't speak for the older ones but I prefer the newer ones mainly because of the shape. I have the bad habit of setting them down on the ways when adjusting the tool rest and less chance of oops so much for that tip or OUCH that's going to leave a mark....

 

[Neil S]

If anyone needs any extra lead shot to add to their handles I have quite a lot of ex-Thompson handle shot to give a way.... ...at least Doug made his plug easy to unscrew to off load!

My personal preference is for 'light and long' gouge handles. I experimented and found that I haven't even needed them to be light, long and 'strong'.

Here is my 5/8" gouge handle with a very light Jimmy Clewes aluminium collet on thin cross section (1mm) aluminium tubing (Alloy 6063/Temper T5) that weighs just 250g-1/2lb...

The collet itself is just 84g
​

I showed it to Jimmy and I think I can summarise his response as bemused...

I have other variations of my light and long handles that all weigh about the same. The one with the fat wooden handle in the photo below with the Oneway fitting looks heavier but is in fact the lightest at 236g...

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I know I'm a bit extreme, but they have the added advantage of adding almost no weight to my luggage if I'm flying somewhere...

The McNaughton corer came with a very heavy handle and I just live with that as I don't do enough coring to warrant doing something about that. Also, if I was to replace it with a lighter handle it would need to be much long and would then start to run into obstruction issues the way I'm setup and coring outboard.

 

[Lance Mirrer]

My personal preference is for 'light and long' gouge handles. I experimented and found that I haven't even needed them to be light, long and 'strong'.

Nice handles. How Long are they?

 

[Dave Landers]

I test-drove my new (to me) gouge yesterday, with the shot in it. Roughed out a bowl and turned a hollow form.
I discovered a few things.
First thing is it's really noticeable how heavy the gouge is when taking it on/off the tool rack - yow.
But the weight didn't bother me while I was turning. This surprised me, I expected to feel it. I think it's because the tool is supported on the tool rest and my body/hip, not my arms.
I didn't really notice any advantage to the extra "ballast". Like robo mentioned, if you're having vibration problems, the tool's weight is unlikely the issue.

All that above I could deal with, and if that were all, I might not bother removing the shot... But
The weighted handle makes the tool really awkward (difficult even) to sharpen. I am used to parabolic flutes, so the added weight is making it that much harder to "find the zone" for sharpening this one.

That's all just my personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

 

[robo hippy]

For handle length, that depends on your turning style. Long bed lathe style like Stuart Batty, and you need longer handles because your arms are extended out away from your body. Mine are all in the 14 to 16 inch long range at the most. I only turn on sliding headstocks or pivoting headstocks so I can stand up straight and not lean over or extend my arms out away from my body. I grasp the handles near the ferule, and have the rest of the handle under my forearm, which doesn't work for the Batty style. Actually I think Stuart said not to hold the tools the way I do. For sure, with his method of turning, my style would not work.

As for the pencil test, I would take finish turned bowls and gently ease a pencil into the outside of the bowl just until contact. The purpose was to see how round the bowl actually was. I got a much less complete circle with a gouge cut/push cut, than I did with a shear scrape. I would expect the shear scrape would be comparable to using a NRS since you are not rubbing the bevel. With the shear scrape and the NRS, you essentially move in gently to take off the high spots, which to me means I can get one almost perfectly round. With a gouge, I have long figured that because you are going through uphill/downhill/uphill/down hill on each revolution, the gouge will cut differently through each quarter, and this can add to the bowl not being perfectly round. At least that is my theory. I did try on a number of different sized bowls. I would expect differences to be greater on bigger bowls, and less on smaller bowls. Can't remember if I tried that or not....

robo hippy

 

[Neil S]

Nice handles. How Long are they?

About 22" for 5/8" bowl gouges and 16-18" for 1/2" bowl gouges and longer for 3/4" and 1" BGs.

If you are turning inboard (I rarely do) you would probably need to remove the tailstock to avoid interference with a 22"handle.

I have used even longer handles when hollowing, as I do all of that freehand and outboard...

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[William Rogers]

@Dave Landers I picked up a Glasser Hitec at an estate sale similar to the original. I also found it was difficult to sharpen. I un-guled the gouge with heat, added a plug at that end to keep the shot trapped and added two set screws. Since yours is the original, you may not want to modify it, but now I can sharpen my gouge much easier. The Gasser Hitec does have a removable plug at the end.

As far as lead weighted handles, I do like the weight in my bowl gouges, but not necessarily in spindle or detail gouges. I guess it is just turner preference if the handle is weighted.

 

[Dave Landers]

Well I removed the tool bar from the handle (heat to release the glue) and found that the handle is not bored all the way thru - bored from each end with a 'wall' in between. So no shot came out that way.
Tried to pry out the plug, but I found out later its glued in. Drilled it out and removed the shot. Was a bit over 13 oz (0.82 lb or around 370g).
Decided to go ahead and drill/tap for a couple set screws.
I assumed it was an "original" because of the hex handle vs the fluted shape of the hitec's. But I'm sure there've been several different iterations over the years. Doesn't really matter - I bought it mainly for the steel (and to use vs look at). And now I have a nice bit of tool steel plus a nice handle I can mix n match with other 5/8" tools.

 

[hockenbery]

But I'm sure there've been several different iterations over the years. Doesn't really matter - I bought it mainly for the steel

So quite an adventure. I didn’t expect yours would be different.
We have
2 black handled 5/8/dia gouges no wall inside and
a red handled 3/8 dia gouge that has set screws and no shot.

Sorry to mislead you.

 

[Dave Landers]

Sorry to mislead you.

No problem - who knew? And it worked out better than if I'd just removed the shot (had I not pulled the steel out, I probably wouldn't now have a removable handle