playing, I guess a vase, dust collector since it is full of holes

Been trying to learn the skew. Seems like I am getting the hang of it then I get catch after catch because I can't see why I am getting them. Trying to clean up an end face or narrow V gets me in trouble.

Anyway, hadn't did any faceplate turning for awhile and I was in the mood. This is seven inches tall, five in diameter, and an eighth thick. Buffed lacquer for a finish. The finish needed a couple more coats or so I had planned. It had a nice shine so I buffed the outside. Couldn't get inside, got to buy some balls to go with my wheels. Trying to reach inside seemed to beat up my rim and left a color difference where the wheels didn't reach. Knew I couldn't buff and the inside is a couple coats lighter on finish anyway.

I put it on a chinese tallow bowl so I could get the gray background behind it, a back cushion. Makes it hard to tell the little bead showing on bottom is the foot of the vase. Did make a little bead that proved an aggravation to keep getting the finish out of. The sides do curve slightly out, something else not plain in the picture. Got to put more curve on my dog food bowls for pointy nosed bird dogs.

Hu

vazzs.jpg
 
I like it.

The little bead at the bottom is just enough to elevate it up a little and make it float some. And its such a nice piece of wood that getting to carried away on the shape would've just obscured that so the nice curve like you've got there is about as good as it gets imho.

What kind of catches are you getting on the skew? And what does your grind look like?
The most common is the backward spiral which happens for a couple of reasons but basically boils down to the cutting edge not having enough support in some fashion or other. My problems went down a lot when I re-ground mine into a slight curve (from the side profile) which makes it easy to keep the very point of the heel out of the wood (and allowed me to get enough practice that moving back to a straight grind was moderately less painful).
 
I like it as well. The color of the wood is fantastic. Skews can be a bit touchy to learn but once you do, you'll be a happy camper. Quite useful tools. Ryan might be right on the grind. I use the factory grind angles that came on mine, but I do keep it razor sharp and when it starts to get a little dull, I use a hone on it to keep the edge good. Keep at it. Next thing you know it will be second nature to you.
 
I also have my students set their tool rest higher than normal when using the skew. Then you aren't contacting so much surface area and catches are less likely. Think of it like this, if you used a bull nosed chisel your contact would be about at 9 o'clock. So when using the skew, set up your tool rest so your skew is coming in contact at about the 11 o'clock time.
 
Thanks to all, especially those with skew suggestions. I started with a concave ground bevel, tried a flat ground bevel, and have modified the profile many times. Trying a curved profile with just he slightest bit of flat then fading back in a curve to the toe. Hate that much metal leaving at once but I think I'm going to a conventional straight edge angled back about fifty degrees.

I fight run back sometimes but also some big ugly gouges in my wood. Seems I am not raising the tool fast enough or not swinging it fast enough, I don't know. I have tried repeating the move over and over because I just don't see what is causing the catch. I think the cutting edge of the skew is hitting up above the halfway point, maybe I am trying to jam the skew in a smaller hole than it fits in sometimes too. I think Don is probably right, the skew is an evil device put on this world to plague mankind! The more I fail with it the more I try to force it and things get ugly, not talking just the wood!

I will master the skew, can't ain't in my vocabulary. Years ago I had a similar battle with a bullnosed trowel. I couldn't master the compound wrist movement to slightly raise the leading edge. Finally a new boss caught me tabbing mud. Showed me how to fan mud, the forty-second time someone had shown me, I understood the theory! He came back a few hours later and after my usual frustration trying to fan mud I was back dabbing mud again. He told me I would be fanning mud by quitting time or it was my last trip through the gate. That was a union construction job paying a princely nine and a nickel an hour plus a gas allowance. Nobody had ever explained things to me so clearly before, I was fanning mud by quitting time and once over the hump was a mudding fool in a few weeks!

Hu
 
Raffan has a really good video on catches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOvF5f1phhY
The key point there was understanding where the cutting edge was (or was not) supported. Somewhat of a revelation really.

Brian Havens skews videos are also quite good (most of his lathe work videos are quite good, he does a nice job of breaking down the why's):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjRwVZZffCDRx9DdpsJQSflOwxlTR5B0m

In the end I don't think the grind really matters that much other than it allowing you to more easily identify on the tool where the cutting is supposed to happen and assisting to some extent in keeping the wrong part of the tool out of the cut. A lot of folks feel the curve helps this somewhat but is clearly not required, like anything its a lot of what you get used to or what works for how you're working.

I would also suggest trying to recreate the catch immediately afterwards with the lathe off present the tool and hand rotate the piece to see if you can get the tool to do what it did in the catch. I've found intentionally re-creating mistakes to be an incredibly useful tool for understanding them and figuring out how to avoid them in the future (within constraints of course ;) ).
 
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