Donna Banfield
TOTW Team
If you've visited other woodturning forums, you may have seen a thread or two in the past couple months about the latest gouge, HannesTool, which is JoHannes Michelsen's (the original wood turned hat maker) new line of gouges.
These are gouges with a grind that he has been using for as long as he's been turning, and are done free hand, without a jig. The tool steel is supplied by Doug Thompson, and Hannes' tools all come with a comfortable ergonomic grip. I learned how to use the tool and sharpen it when Hannes did a demo for one of my club's last fall. I signed up to take one of his 3-day workshops in his studio a couple months later.
Not wanting to lose that skill, I started using the tool on my bowls, and discovered that it worked quite well in a number of ways that were an improvement over the side grind bowl gouge. For example, I can do a shear cut on a bowl interior, using the lower cutting edge and the flute on it's side (facing the interior of the bow) without getting that awful divot when the edge catches.
Hannes posted a video on YouTube last month demonstrating how he takes a brand new gouge, and puts the grind on it. At about the same time, I completed filming a series on how to make a twice-turned bowl for expertvillage.com. I used the HannesTool gouges exclusively for this series. The clips are now appearing online, and the following 3 clips show how to sharpen the HannesTool gouges:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121124_using-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121125_sharpening-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121126_grinding-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm
These are gouges with a grind that he has been using for as long as he's been turning, and are done free hand, without a jig. The tool steel is supplied by Doug Thompson, and Hannes' tools all come with a comfortable ergonomic grip. I learned how to use the tool and sharpen it when Hannes did a demo for one of my club's last fall. I signed up to take one of his 3-day workshops in his studio a couple months later.
Not wanting to lose that skill, I started using the tool on my bowls, and discovered that it worked quite well in a number of ways that were an improvement over the side grind bowl gouge. For example, I can do a shear cut on a bowl interior, using the lower cutting edge and the flute on it's side (facing the interior of the bow) without getting that awful divot when the edge catches.
Hannes posted a video on YouTube last month demonstrating how he takes a brand new gouge, and puts the grind on it. At about the same time, I completed filming a series on how to make a twice-turned bowl for expertvillage.com. I used the HannesTool gouges exclusively for this series. The clips are now appearing online, and the following 3 clips show how to sharpen the HannesTool gouges:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121124_using-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121125_sharpening-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/121126_grinding-woodturning-tools-hannes-gouge.htm