How To Use A Roughing Gouge

The roughing gouge is used to plow your rough wood down to round. The profile and shape on the gouge are suited to taking wood off of a spindle. This is usually the first tool y'all use on a projection. Information technology is long and heavy so that you can handle the torque generated by taking bites out of the wood after you take been turning air.

Turning air? Okay, let'southward kickoff with the basics. Yous go to the shop. Your rip a standard 2 x four into 2 turning blanks. They are square not round. As you use your roughing gouge to plough information technology circular you offset by hitting each of the four edges and slowly work your way downward to a round turning bare. So at the start your tool is hit wood, air, woods, air, wood, air, wood, air! Each time the tool and the wood run across information technology gives a bit of a knock. That is why you want a heavier tool. At that place is a tendency for the tool to motility if it is cutting "air" and not wood.

How to present the roughing gouge to the wood

The key to using all of your turning tools is ABC. This stands for Anchor, Bevel, and Cut! (non catch!) This is very important as y'all start to rough turn your blanks. Ballast means having the tool on the tool residual. Bevel, is the expanse of the tool that is shiny from the sharpening and usually volition be below the cutting point. The bevel can rub on the woods all twenty-four hours and non cutting anything! This is a safe place for your tool. To move to cutting you slide the tip of the tool down as y'all raised the handle of the tool beside your body. Do not lift the tool off of the tool remainder!

This image shows you that my back manus (right in this case) holds the handle and controls the gouge. The grip by the left manus is guidance not tight fisted.

As you move the tool into the cutting position you start by taking off dust rather than shaving. Now the cutting edge is merely in contact with the wood. Angle your tool in the direction y'all desire to move and bring the handle up a little. Now you should accept shavings and be making a nice cut with your roughing gouge.

You tin see the fine shavings. In this case I was making a honey dipper and I wanted the blank circular but also equally large as I could turn it. And so I was taking very fine cuts at the end. Note over again the front hand is not gripping the tool but guiding it along the tool rest.

So the roughing gouge, also known as SRG or Spindle Roughing Gouge, takes your wood from "rough" to round. While some turners do use the SRG as a basin gouge information technology really does not have the right shape for turning bowls. A bowl gouge actually volition piece of work meliorate and easier than a roughing gouge for turning bowls.

Moving the Roughing Gouge

When I first turned stuff I had the flute of the gouge completely centered similar a "U". As I got used to using the gouge I rolled it over on its side to present a unlike angle to the turning. This will piece the wood easier while you are still riding on the bevel. You can also have your tool across your work from left to correct or from correct to left.

The roughing gouge is moving from my correct to my left. The flute of the gouge is leading in the management of the cutting. In this case the leading hand is pulling the tool.

Now nosotros are moving from left to right and the leading hand is pushing the tool across the tool balance. Remember do non overly grip your tools. If your hands are tense you lot're heading for trouble. Stop the cut, relax your hands, and call back near the cut yous want to brand and how information technology should go. Sometimes I forget too but information technology is always easier if you lot are relaxed with your tools.

When you are first information technology is better to move the roughing gouge from the center of your work to the outside edges. Once you lot are used to your tools you can come up in from the outside as your hands will know what they are doing. This does take some time. You will this in the video below.

Turning blanks to round is fun and easy. If you happen to become a take hold of it is usually non too serious and you lot keep turning until you get past the harm from the catch. Experiment with the roughing gouge to see what angles and presentations work best for you. Recall ABC and that will cutting downward on your catches.

Video showing the use of a roughing gouge

This video shows me roughing a standard two 10 iv in order to brand a mason jar lid. This part focuses on using the roughing gouge. Afterward the blank is mounted and I exercise a trivial turning you tin run across how each corner of the blank is beingness removed by the roughing gouge. This is a great example of showing "air turning". The path that I am cutting is about an xviii" circle and I am only cutting (at the kickoff) almost an inch of wood. And then I'm turning a lot of air!

And then this is how information technology looks. This is only the roughing out function of the process of turning a Stonemason Jar hat. I did this video earlier I heard about ABC otherwise I would have mentioned it. In my motions you can see me placing and practicing earlier I brand the beginning cut. Help your torso figure out how the cuts go by doing a non-cutting first then touch the wood.

I hope you enjoyed the data on the roughing gouge. It is a central tool to assist you quickly turn your blanks to circular. They are also useful if there are sections of your turning that you need to remove a lot of bulk. If you lot were turning a honey dipper the handle is quite thin so you lot can utilise a roughing gouge to get close to your finished size and and then apply your spindle gouge and skew chisel to finish information technology off.

Turning For Profit

This post focused on the turning technique of using a roughing gouge. I have three other wood turning technique posts.

Convict Ring Tool
Sanding your Turnings
Calculation a Burn Line

If yous have any questions nearly the techniques of turning, turning specific projects, or the concern of turning, please leave me a comment at the lesser of the page.

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