Carbide Tools

[Troydale]

I am researching the new carbide tip tools manufactured by Easy Wood Tools and Carbide Wood Turning Tools. Has anyone used these tools, and if so, what is your opinion/advise?

 

[Tony Latham]

Troy, I can't help you with any personal experience but I have read quite a bit on 'em... I suggest you just do a search on this site for "carbide", I suspect your question has been asked before and the answer is archived here somewhere.

Cheers, and good turning!

TL

 

[john lucas]

Troy I have one and have been playing with it. (the square cutter like the easywood tools) I am very experienced with the bowl gouge so that biases my opinion. The tools are extremely easy to use. You just basically push it in. It cuts pretty clean and would not require a lot of sanding if you take light passes on the last few cuts.
It would be hard to use on the inside of a bowl. You could rough out the bowl but since the cutter is square it would be difficult to get a nice rounded shape on the inside.
For me a bowl gouge is just about as easy to use and gives me much better control over the shape of the piece because you are riding the bevel and using the longer lever of the handle to give you finer control. You can also get a cleaner cut with bowl gouge. In the hands of a beginner a bowl gouge can be daunting. It is worth learning if you want the ultimate in fine control over the shape of a piece.
That being said a lot of people are using the carbide tools with good success.

 

[AlanZ]

I have several of the Easy Wood tools and I like them a lot.

I was very impressed with how well they turn acrylics... much nicer and faster than a skew for items like pens. Get into things like Tru-Stone and one can quickly appreciate the tools, and the beauty of not standing in front of a grinder for most of the shop time.

I have and like quality conventional tools too, but the carbides are the ones I reach for first these days.

Here are a couple of photos of my Easy Wood flock

 

[Doug Thompson]

I wouldn't put those two companies in the same post. According to Craig the other company is a old friend (30 miles away)who copied his tool and sure looks like his site too. The other web site doesn't have a address or phone posted on the site and the site owner has a address as a P.O. box at some hospital.

Personally I wouldn't spend a dime on a company who doesn't give a way to contact them... this company is hiding the contact info for a reason.

 

[Cathy Schaewe]

I have three of the easy wood tools - ci2, ci3, ci4. I really, really like them - but I'd have to say I use my Thompson bowl gouges twice as much, easily. There are times, though, like going around the curve to the bottom on the inside of a bowl, where I can get a better finish with the ci3. I attribute that to my lack of experience ....

I've turned with a couple of the imitations of the easy wood tools, and they didn't compare, IMO.

 

[n7bsn]

I wouldn't put those two companies in the same post. According to Craig the other company is a old friend (30 miles away)who copied his tool and sure looks like his site too. The other web site doesn't have a address or phone posted on the site and the site owner has a address as a P.O. box at some hospital.

Personally I wouldn't spend a dime on a company who doesn't give a way to contact them... this company is hiding the contact info for a reason.

I wouldn't know anything about the 2nd company. But I will inject my personal thought

I don't do business with any firm, that doesn't include a phone number and/or physical address in their ads (web or print), unless I already know who they are