Grinding Gouges- wolverine - rant Newbies be ware!

Rob Keeble

Member
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12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Hi All

Well after having bought the wolverine setup quiet some time ago before i even built my shop, this weekend past I finally got to set it up and do some sharpening of my lathe tools.

Well what an experience I had. Thought I was back in colledge doing a lab experiment with equipment where you first have to fix the equipment before you can use it.

So first thing i do is go searching on the web at the one way site for the instructions. Download and print and off to the shop.

Set up the grinder and the wolverine jigs etc.

Then look to use the vari grind jig to do my bowl gouge.

This is where things got testy. They refer to a 65* angle on the face and swept back top to 3/4 inch. Then try and set the leg to 5 notches down and grind the sides etc as they say.

3 hours later a bashed finger and blood everywhere (doing something really stupid on the grinder) and 1 inch of lost gouge I finally settle on giving up and going to the web.

Thanks go out to Stu for his heads up on the demystifying sharpening article. Trouble is somehow when I had found the article and downloaded it I did not put it in the right place.

Well having given up and resorted to searching U tube I found Stus video on sharpening the gouge using the demystifying jigs.

Hunt around and I eventually dont know how but came across the article on my PC.

Now I have to tell you all this was after I had ground a number of different side ground configurations on the bowl gouge.

I was so mad (should have gone inside but did not) that I mounted a laminated cherry blank to a flat steel faceplate using screws and started to turn a bowl to see how this mystical method cut.

After much cussing and cutting I decided there had to be something wrong with these instructions from one way. I could understand the logic of the front bevel being say 60* ie being supported by metal but no ways could i get the sides to be sharp and have the same angle with the varigrind set the way they describe.

So imagine my delight when after having struggled for much of the day and then turned some wood and retired to do some research that when I read the Demystifying article the guy agrees with my conclusion.

Now I will knock off the jigs he describes and give them a try just like Stu says.

Wish I had found that article in the morning. But as i used to say back in the day, now I know a great deal more about using the gouge and how the angles work.

I will also write to One Way and let them have it. One would think a company that makes the jig would have the instructions down pat and correct.

With their instructions by the time you have edges on the side you are probably down to 30* and boy what great catches you get. Luckily for this newbie I used the slowest speed on my lathe.

Made a lot of curlies and woke myself up to the fact that I should not have mounted the wood on the face plate with screws (now I have 4 holes in the bottom of my shallow bowl) but i did not think to first cut a tennon and put the bowl in the chuck.

Decided I will put a walnut insert into the base to hide the holes.:rofl:

Now I am going to make a Longworth Chuck after researching our site and finding Vaughns post.

Boy the information I found here is invaluable to someone getting started.

Any comments on bowl gouge sharpening would be welcome.

By the way if anyone in the experienced class can refer to some videos on U tube that are trustworthy as correct method besides Stus I would appreciate it. I am a little weary of some of the videos I see.

Enjoy the laugh but I had a good time and learned a great deal. :rofl::thumb::D
 
Go to the Woodworking store where you bought the jig.Take your tool in to them and have them walk you through the set up. It's not that hard, if you're shown.

One thing I didn't read. Did you set up a guage/ mark on the grinder table, so you always set the gouge in the same distance in the Varigrind?

This is the starting point and makes it possible to get repeatability in your grind.

Step two, is to put the leg into the socket and test grind the tip, adjusting the socket in and out till you get an even line down the face(I mark the bevel with a marking pen so I can tell when It's right).

Step three, is to test the side grind till you get the verticle line on the face (adjust just the angle of the leg through the knotches to get this)

Step four, is grind in one continous, smooth pass, side to side, until sharp.

If you were in Illinois, I could have you doin' it like a pro in fifteen minutes.


Bruce
 
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