Wood Lathe Tools

After the wood lathe itself, the most important tools used in woodturning are the chisels.
These come in many shapes and sizes - with cutting heads designed for a variety of specific purposes.

The common chisel types are:

* Roughing Gouges
Many turning jobs begin with a square block in the lathe. It is the job of the roughing gouge to quickly shape it into a cylinder - in preparation for finer detailing. Typically made from high-speed steel, the cutting head is wide fluted and sharpened at an angle of approximately 45 degrees.

* Skew Chisels
These tools are used on spindle work only, not faceplate work. The cutting head edge is 'skewed' at approximately 70 degrees from the handle's longitude, which gives this chisel its name. The cutting angle is usually also about 70 degrees and is honed to a razor-edge sharpness,
This tool is handy for smoothing flat spindles, cutting beads and generally adding details to the workpiece.

* Spindle (or Detailing) Gouges
These strong, shallow-fluted gouges are used for detailing on spindles such as beads and coves (scallops or rounded grooves.) The typical cutting edge angle for this tool is between 30 and 40 degrees.

* Bowl Gouges
These chisels come in a greater range of sizes, shapes and cutting angles that most of the others. Every bowl turner has a favorite. 40 to 55 degrees is fairly typical for the cutting edge angle. This is a deep-fluted gouge, normally with a longer and thicker handle and tool shaft than a typical spindle gouge.
As the name suggests, it is used for turning bowls and other vessels - both inside and outside.

* Parting Tools
When the lathe shaping operations are complete, the work is separated, or 'parted off', with the parting tool. This leaves a nice squared-off end. The parting tool is also commonly used for creating flat-bottomed grooves in a workpiece.

* Scrapers
Ground almost flat (usually around 85 degrees) scrapers actually do cut rather than scrape when used correctly. The scraper is a finishing tool, smoothing off the work of other tools. They come in a wide variety of shapes and are often customized by turners for specific jobs. Scrapers are particularly useful in achieving a fine finish inside bowls.

* Hollowing Tools
These come in a great variety of shapes and sizes, and usually have extra long handles to make it easier for cutting into such things as deep bowls and vases

Other useful tools for the wood turner are:

- The wire tool (a wire between handles) or even just a plain piece of wire, for friction-burning decorative lines.
- Wood thread-cutting tools.
- Decorative chatter tool for adding chatter to a job.
- Ring-cutting tools
- Auger (drill bit)
- Bowl Saver. For coring out the inside section of a bowl in one piece for re-use, rather than wasting the material.

A few important points about safety.

Most of this is plain common sense, but sometimes we need reminding:
* Wear safety glasses
* Avoid wearing loose clothing or loose jewelry
* Cover or tie-back long hair
* Remove chuck key from chuck!
* Check lathe guards are securely in place
* Use dust mask or respirator if appropriate (Some wood dust is toxic)
* Double-check that everything is secure before starting lathe.
* Stand aside from the 'line of fire' in case anything happens to fly off
* Start lathe at slow speed first as a precaution before changing to normal speed.

This video shows a few woodturning tools in use on the wood lathe:

Woodturning has been around for a very long time. The earliest evidence of using a lathe device to shape wood dates back to 1300BC in Egypt!
Today, wood turning has become a very popular hobby and income-earner for many home workshop turners.
Very affordable woodworking lathes like the Jet mini lathe, the Grizzly benchtop lathe and the Klein micro lathe have only added to wood turning's growth and popularity.