Bowl gouges - a couple of queries

[OldWood]

I've been turning for a year and have only really recently got to terms with turning out the inside of a bowl - that means that I am now confident enough with my tool use that I can do it reasonably quickly, consistently and without the bowl taking off into orbit. Tomorrow of course will be different !!

Now it may be that my approach may be effective but is non standard as one of the problems I find is that the two big gouges I have (Hamlets) have inconveniently long handles. One is traditionally ground and doesn't get used that much and the other is finger nail ground - regardless I find that in order to get the bevel to remain in contact with the wood, I am taking the handle down such that with its length it is inhibited by the lathe bed - 160mm below centre. Any comments ?

The second question is that I have amongst a collection of gouges I bought a Sorby bowl gouge measuring 16mm across. This is on a non-Sorby handle (definitely shorter) and I am thinking about converting it to finger nail grind .... but it's not a fully circular shaft; will the Tormek setting I am using for a round shaft give me much the same result ?

Thanks
Rob

 

[John. B]

Hello Rob,
Could be you just need to re-profile your existing gouges to a more acute bevel.
B & C profile are good examples, try outside to in, 9.o'clock to centre with the gouge describing an arc. If that makes sense.
If you have the Tormek user guide, one of the pages has a list of settings for the gouge jig.

John. B