Two more bowl gouge flute profiles

Gordon Seto

Member
Messages
151
Location
Stow, OH
In addition to those I posted earlier, these are the side by side comparison of the Thompson 5/8” “V” and “U” bowl gouges.
The pictures of the other gouges can be found here:
http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9745

ae7dfc00.jpg

Gary Guenther (GaryG in MD) has approached me and suggested he would write an article summing up the collective wisdom from posts regarding the effects on flute profiles. We hope this will generate a lot of subjective comments so we can all benefit from the findings.
Gary has two PSI Benjamin’s Best LX230 5/8” bowl gouges; he is going to loan them to me at the Richmond Symposium. I am going to include them when I come back from Symposium.

When I posted the pictures, a keen turner noticed the flute on the Mastercut gouges was not symmetrical and asked whether the mold got deformed when I remove the gouge. So I did another casting. It confirmed that it is slightly lopsided. I didn’t buy this gouge brand new. I bought it from a member who moved to a retirement community. I don’t know whether he bought it as seconds or not. I had the gouge for several years; I never noticed any irregularity in its flute until in the cast. This proves my point that casting the molds helps us to see the difference better.

624fd927.jpg


Please share your experience, Gary needs more inputs.
 
Thanks for posting the update, Gordon. I was surprised to see the lopsided profile on the Mastercut gouge. (I noticed it in the first set of pics, too.)
 
I have seen Oneway selling mastercut gouges as seconds where they explain that the flute was cut off center. I've always been chicken to buy one because I'm not sure how it would effect the grind/performance.
I would suspect this is one of those "defective" tools, as Gordon speculates. I have to believe that Oneway's metal working shop has Quality Control to catch these before they would ship as first quality.
How does it cut, Gordon? Do you ever notice a difference between cutting outsides of bowls versus insides?

Is the profile of your castings what I would see looking into the tip of the gouge, or looking from the handle side?
Maybe a better way of asking is "Is the thinner wall of the flute used on bowl interiors or exteriors?"
Maybe this tool can partially answer your own question about advantages of thin vs. thick wall!
 
Last edited:
Kurt,

When you are looking at the casting, the tip is facing you. So it is the left hand side is thinner.
I never run the lathe in reverse and turn on the other side of the lathe bed. We are using certain part of the edge for certain cut. I just assumed it is the character of this gouge.
 
Top