I haven't tried any of the Rockler, but from my experience flat-topped carbide tools in general, although they don't need sharpening and are easy to use, sometimes may not cut cleanly on certain wood and in certain circumstances. At least not for me. The Hunter bits work more like very sharp gouges. With reasonably good wood and reasonable tool control the results can be pleasing. As an example, I sized this piece from African Blackwood with a parting tool, then turned with a Hunter Hercules tool with the tiny #1 cutter, used like a spindle gouge in this case. This is off the tool with no sanding. With some care the polished cutter can leave an ALMOST flawless surface. (I turn at high speed which helps.) After rough cutting to near the desired shape, the long section is mostly a single cleanup pass with a couple of careful restarts. You can see where the surface still needs some work. (Sorry, the wide angle camera lens distorts a lot!)
View attachment 76966 This is the same piece after sanding by hand with 600-1200 grit. (I still wasn't happy with the ends so I reshaped them after this, again with the Hunter tool, and resanded.)
View attachment 76967 I held this piece with what I call "jam centers", kind of like jam chucks but acting as centers with jam pieces turned to fit the little curved bowls I'd cut in both ends. Before shaping the jam pieces to fit, I had cut short #2 morse tapers on both so I could hold them in the headstock and in the 2MT built into the Nova live center. (My favorite live center - extremely adaptable to hold almost any small thing!) BTW, I make "jam" and friction centers as needed to hold the ends of spindles and other work, for example to support an end a drilled hole such as when making a conductor's baton. With the 2MT in the Nova live center it's easy to make one of any size and shape as needed. A few in the foreground here, with some things that come with the Nova center behind. This works after a fashion with Oneway live enters if you knock out the point - held, I think, with a #0MT.
View attachment 76978 The point is, for me, the Hunter carbide tools can do a reasonable job. The same thing could be done with a 3/8" spindle gouge but might require resharpening since the African Blackwood is so hard. I wouldn't try this with flat-top scraping tools but someone else might. I rely on the combination of the Hunter Hercules and a spindle gouge for lots of other things, for example to acrylic things such as this little stopper. BTW, for small things I loves me some new Nova dome jaws! I first saw these at the TAW symposium the end of January.
View attachment 76970 JKJ
