Every hobby, sport and past time has it’s share of debates which help drive competition and innovation in that specific arena which in turn gives it life.\u00a0 Luthiers argue over whether a Taylor or Martin may sound better, but at the end of the day a Taylor’s neck is not engineered for a long life, but a temperamental one.\u00a0 This fuels the race to build a better mouse trap…in this example a guitar.\u00a0 Anyone rebuilding a\u00a0 67′ GTO is going to have to face a lot of opinions on which shifter and intake perform better.\u00a0 The examples here are endless. One of the most polarizing debates amongst woodturners on lathe tools today is carbide vs. wood lathe chisels. Assuming some newcomers may reading this, I will briefly outline: Carbide inserts or known as carbide tips, carbide cutters, etc. are the interchangeable inserts that go in the end of a wood turning tool\/ handle via a screw.\u00a0 They have a factory razor sharp edge and can be flipped for different angles and longer use . Wood turning chisels or wood lathe chisels are handles with a piece of steel with an edge like a knife. Like a knife you need to sharpen them to keep them sharp.\u00a0 Instead of creating a con and pro list, I will just briefly outline the benefit, advantage, and cons of each tool.\u00a0 Clearly we endorse Carbide here, however you will receive an honest and fair assessment.\u00a0 I can’t cover every angle of this argument but I will start with\u00a0 the following, and publish more down the road on this ongoing debate.<\/p>\n
First off, many of wood turners use both carbide and chisels.\u00a0 There are good and varied reasons, but lets start with the fact that wood lathe chisels are the oldest tool used for the job and continues in an old school camp of turners.\u00a0 Carbide inserts are a reasonably new technology, so wood turners up on the latest and greatest will naturally gravitate to carbide for that reason to start.\u00a0 Carbide is much easier and there is less of a learning curve.\u00a0 However, sharpening your chisel, if you’re skilled and experienced will save you insert bucks in the long run.\u00a0 However, you have to look at the nominal cost of an insert and ask yourself if the time saving\u00a0 benefit of not sharpening is right for you.\u00a0 It’s the difference between sharpening your kitchen knife, or pulling out a new one every-time you need it sharpened…but without throwing the knife handle away.\u00a0 Most importantly, when hollowing forms carbide inserts\u00a0are scrapers, and traditional gouges are slicers.\u00a0 However the cup cutters like the AA Carbide’s cup cutters and Hoggers are more of slicers.\u00a0 Slicing will always give you that immediate satisfaction of a refined surface where gougers are more chiseled and rough.\u00a0 The immediate satisfaction is popular for nubies.<\/p>\n
One popular choice for even the old school hold outs are using gougers with carbide inserts for hollowing.\u00a0 Sharpness and angle is very critical to a good hollow and makes short work of it.\u00a0 This is why you find both camps using carbide for hollowing forms.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day many woodturning professionals and hobbyists would say choosing carbide inserts or chisels boils down to tradition vs. the latest technology. A lot of wood turners use and make their own tools and handles.\u00a0 So are you a purist or traditionalist?\u00a0 I wish I could write more on it, but its really that simple.\u00a0 So what are the best woodturning tools for the job? As an authority on carbide inserts, we would ask whether you’d chop a tree down with a chainsaw or axe?<\/p>\n
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Every hobby, sport and past time has it’s share of debates which help drive competition and innovation in that specific arena which in turn gives it life.\u00a0 Luthiers argue over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1227,"featured_media":7620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n