The dreaded SKEW !!!

[Jonzjob]

This is the ply pen Terry

It is quite bizare to look at and when you turn it it looks as if you can see into the wood.

This is the bowl I made from the same sheet of ply and the one that I swore that I wouldn't ever turn it again. Very dusty, takes the edge off yer gouges like nothing else and difficult to get a good finish on it

And this id the first I turned a number of years back from Russian birch, a much better ply that I got from Severn Ply in Stonehouse Gloucestershire. Much better quality, but still a pig to turn. A finer ply with less 'oles in it and a lot cheaper tahn the c r a p you can get here..

A couple of people thought it was porcelain?

Sorry for the hi-jack, but the question was asked. Perhapse it should go on a different thread?

 

[OldWood]

I've had little difficulty using the skew for planing - 19mm oval with a longish bevel on it - but I decided to make a whole lot of santa claus' for Christmas and got going with the 10mm (flat with long bevel) skew for the body shape.

On the 4th or 5th everything suddenly went wrong and I couldn't create the body beads without catches happening. I went back to the book and found that I had become just a little too confident in the tool and was going in too directly - by going back to the principle of all turning, rub then lift handle, my problems disappeared. In this case it was rub the long point, and then lift.

I can't really see how a skew can really work with a steep bevel as the essence of the tool in my turning anyhow is using as a plane where a long bevel is required to rest on the work, and certainly for the Santa Claus, the tool needs to be narrow to get to the bottom of the adjacent beads.

Rob

 

[LancsRick]

What do you guys consider as a long or short bevel for a skew? I'd just view mine as "normal", but then again I've never experimented with different bevel lengths...

 

[Sawyer]

What do you guys consider as a long or short bevel for a skew? I'd just view mine as "normal", but then again I've never experimented with different bevel lengths...

My 'long' bevel is about is around 15 degrees each side (ie. a combined cutting angle of 30 degrees). This is on a 1.1/4" oval skew. I use this for planing cuts and smoothing cylinders &c. at which it excels. Also good for slow concave curves, but I find it difficult to control when rolling beads and similar.

My other skew is a 1/2" square with 25 degrees each side: a standard configuration but 'short' compared to the other tool. Far better for beads and generally, very versatile. With a combined angle of 50 degrees, it has its limitations on fine detail, eg. deep Vee cuts.

 

[Blister]

Also the size of the skew is relevant to the diameter of the piece being turned

IE big cylinder = big skew

Life becomes uncomfortable with a small skew on a big cylinder :shock:

 

[Jonzjob]

But a big skew isn't always uncomfortable on a small cylinder :mrgreen:

I only ever use my 1" oval on my pens for instance.