What to add to my turning tool collection?

[Phil Pascoe]

You can buy HSS round and flat bar on Amazon/Ebay cheaply enough and make your own scrapers and round skews.

I remember club lathes had five tools each - a parting tool, a bowl gouge, a spindle gouge, a roughing gouge and a skew. They were deemed enough for 95% of turning.

 

[justinpeer]

Had a thought this morning, dangerous, I know and then grabbed a grinder and a couple of flap wheels to attack those Sorby spindle gouges. Half an hour later and after a trip to the grinder, they now look like this.

The larger one doesn't fit in the oneway guide so that was done freehand. They're by no means perfect but I think they look at least useable for now.

Which gives me this currently as the starter set for spindles, ½" & ¾" spindle gouges and ½" & 1" skews.

and leaves a parting tool, bowl gouge and roughing gouge to acquire and possibly a ⅜" spindle gouge in HSS for smaller work.

For the extra £10 I think I'll get the 1 ¼" roughing gouge over the ¾" as I have an endless supply of logs from the woodland, ⅜" bowl gouge seems to be most recommended and just leaves the parting tool style and size to be decided.

 

[justinpeer]

You can buy HSS round and flat bar on Amazon/Ebay cheaply enough and make your own scrapers and round skews.

I remember club lathes had five tools each - a parting tool, a bowl gouge, a spindle gouge, a roughing gouge and a skew. They were deemed enough for 95% of turning.

Good to know for the future that I can get HSS bar, that hadn't occurred to me and I like making my own tools.
The starter set sounds a lot like what I'm trying to put together

 

[Vulcan]

Dovetail scraper.

Not needed IMO. I made that mistake and then saw several professionals using the tip of a skew to do the job. The redundant dovetail scraper was reground into something more useful.

 

[Vulcan]

Had a thought this morning, dangerous, I know and then grabbed a grinder and a couple of flap wheels to attack those Sorby spindle gouges. Half an hour later and after a trip to the grinder, they now look like this.

How sharp a gouge can be made is partly determined by the flute. I’ve read some turners spend time polishing the flute, not only to give a keener edge but also to eject shavings more easily. Not so critical on a bowl gouge as many don’t go beyond about 240g when sharpening. On a spindle gouge though an experienced turner can get a good finish straight from the tool with a suitably honed gouge.
I have an 800g belt for my grinder and can get a very sharp edge on some of my gouges.

 

[Tris]

Those two unhandled scrapers have what look suspiciously like file tangs on them. Be careful you don't have repurposed files amongst the handled ones. Files were often ground down for turning tools but are usually too brittle. Definitely don't want one shattering on you