Stuart Batty Tools

[Brian Deakin]

It saddens me when Stuart who has contributed greatly to our understanding of woodturning and who has probably impacted on the skill set of a large numbers of woodturners is dismissed so easily

Stuart's has displayed both immense generosity and insight

34 videos on Vimeo , introducing turners to negative rake scrapping ,his development of,40.40 grind and his advice and explanations of many aspects of woodturning

Simply wish the man well with his endeavour

 

[Neil S]

It saddens me when Stuart who has contributed greatly to our understanding of woodturning and who has probably impacted on the skill set of a large numbers of woodturners is dismissed so easily

Stuart's has displayed both immense generosity and insight

34 videos on Vimeo , introducing turners to negative rake scrapping ,his development of,40.40 grind and his advice and explanations of many aspects of woodturning

Simply wish the man well with his endeavour

I applaud the efforts of anyone who tries to improve the turning tools available to us.

Among my heroes are Roy Child in the UK who gave us the first machine ground 'superflute' gouges to replace the more expensive forged gouges available before that and Jerry Glaser in the US who gave us the first HSS gouges that were ground from round bar and also the first porotype of the gouge sharpening jig.

I have long thought that laminated woodturning tools would be a next big development. We really only need a thin layer of the exotic steels at the very cutting edge. My hand forged Japanese kitchen knives are made that way and they outperform any other knife I have ever used. Having a whole gouge made from exotic HSS is unnecessary. It is surprising that nobody has gone down the laminated pathway for turning tools before this.

I also wish Stuart every success and who knows what other spinoffs may come out of his venture.

 

[Dennis Weiner]

Sometimes goals are not met timely, for various reasons. Its happened before with Stuart. I was at totally turning two years ago, when he announced his intent to start up again. Its going to eventually happen.

Here is a video of him using his new tools. He did mention in the video, that was the only 15v bowl gouge in the world.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRXGMKtf5eA&t=7s


Enjoy..

I think his scrapers were made so large because they may be more stable across the tool rest???

 

[robo hippy]

I do wish Stuart luck. While no one else now makes V15 tools, there are reasons for that. As for him 'Introducing' the negative rake scraper, no, it was around long before he helped make it popular. His dad told a story about using NRSs to make billiard balls out of elephant ivory. Stuart did coin the term NRS for the turning tools, but negative rake table saw blades have been around for a very long time. If he did make his tools to fit standard handles, I might be tempted to try them out. I think this is one reason he has not yet been successful as a business man. As they are, no deal. His platform is okay, but I never really have used one. I don't want to have to use jigs to set angles, They will be slightly off most of the time, and never exact all the time. That is why I made the platform I did. I now have the Right Angle grinder platforms, but really haven't put them to the test yet. There are no jigs required to set angles. Having pre set angles is a big time savings for a production turner.

If you ever watched my video Scary Scrapers, you know I don't use scrapers over 1 inch wide. One risk is getting too much metal into the wood at one time, which can make spectacular catches. Being bigger to me is a problem. As for stability, just move the tool rest closer. He likes to turn his bowls with a straight bowl rest. One reason I made my S shaped rests was so I could keep the tools closer to the work and there was no need to overhang long distances.

robo hippy

 

[Doug Freeman]

. I now have the Right Angle grinder platforms, but really haven't put them to the test yet.

Where can these be found?

 

[RichColvin]

For those interested in the science behind the sharpening of various metals, the Science of Sharp is a great web site. They recently posted this article, "Carbides in 15V".

 

[robo hippy]

Where can these be found?

I think I just googled it. Gil Lee is the owner, and I know he is out of Iowa. There is a video up on You Tube as well. The rest does sit higher than mine did. One version has 6 individual bolts that you adjust to your favorite settings. The other has holes from 1 to 22 or 23. You match your desired angle, and use that specific hole number. Both are available as either free standing or Oneway Wolverine compatible. Mike Waldt did a video on them as well. I would guess contact info is available on Mike's video.

robo hippy

 

[Asher Langton]

Where can these be found?

I have one I'll be listing for sale soon. The adjustment mechanism works well, but the whole thing is a little too lightweight for my taste. If you're heavy-handed on the platform, as I sometimes am, it can flex a bit. Also, mine only goes to about 30° (using the Wolverine bases I already had mounted) so I had to swap in Wolverine platforms for skews and parting tools. There is a skew adapter available for more acute angles I believe, but I didn't buy it.

I just bought a Kodiak platform to try out and so far I prefer it, even though the preset angles are less useful.

 

[John Snow]

I have a Rikon 1hp grinder with CBN wheels that I bought in Jan., 2023, from Woodturners Wonders. It came set up with the spherical washers to allow balancing, and WW did a great job. Balanced, and with little, if any, perceptible runout. They work great on my HSS tools.

 

[Robert Santore]

For those interested in the science behind the sharpening of various metals, the Science of Sharp is a great web site. They recently posted this article, "Carbides in 15V".

Wow, fascinating site - thanks for mentioning it

 

[john lucas]

I have one I'll be listing for sale soon. The adjustment mechanism works well, but the whole thing is a little too lightweight for my taste. If you're heavy-handed on the platform, as I sometimes am, it can flex a bit. Also, mine only goes to about 30° (using the Wolverine bases I already had mounted) so I had to swap in Wolverine platforms for skews and parting tools. There is a skew adapter available for more acute angles I believe, but I didn't buy it.

I just bought a Kodiak platform to try out and so far I prefer it, even though the preset angles are less useful.

I modified my Kodiak platform. The right angle platforms had not come out yet. I have the roborest. I bought the Kodiak to try out to recommend to my students and club members if it worked. It worked great but I needed more indexing. I drilled holes every 5 degrees that were not already marked. I usecan alken wrench in the holes.

 

[Neil S]

For those interested in the science behind the sharpening of various metals, the Science of Sharp is a great web site. They recently posted this article, "Carbides in 15V".

The Science of Sharp website has lots of interesting information on the different cutting steels and I follow it because of my interest in kitchen knives, but keep in mind that the requirements for a knife are very different from what we require in a woodturning tool.

I am probably one of the few woodturners that has been using 15V for woodturning as long as I have and my assessment of it is that it does hold its edge for slightly longer than 10V and noticeably longer M42, but because of the size of the carbides in it doesn't retain the keenness of its edge as well as those two. However, it keeps on cutting in fashion for longer that those two steels. I use it predominantly on the very hard woods we get down our way and that saves me re-sharpening time. I have been using it very regularly over the last 10-15yrs and I haven't noticed it chipping any more than the other steels that others refer to. In fact, it has never chipped on me.

Whether the 15V is worth the extra cost is another call. It is more expensive than 10V and doesn't perform all that much better. But, given some of the woods I turn it was worth it for me until I starting using tungsten carbide gouges, which are measurably more resilient yet again with the toughest woods I turn.

Anyway, I don't think I would be recommending 15V as a starting turning tool for new turners, but then again I wouldn't be recommending new turners start with Stuart's tools anyway. There is just so much kit to acquire in the early stages of setting up without blowing the budget on just a few very special tools.

 

[robo hippy]

The right angle grinder rest is more 'heavy duty' than my robo rest. I did find out that my rest was 5 degrees off across all the measured points. No clue as to why, but maybe because it should have been set slightly lower rather than on center with the axle of the grinder. As for being heavy handed when grinding, you should grind or more correctly sharpen, you should sharpen like you turn, and that is a light brush against the wheel. If you are grinding you are wasting metal. If you are sharpening, then your tools will last a lot longer. If you are trying to reshape a tool, then you can push harder as there is some benefit to more pressure. I reserve my 36 grit belt on a 1 hp Jet belt grinder.

robo hippy

 

[Asher Langton]

As for being heavy handed when grinding, you should grind or more correctly sharpen, you should sharpen like you turn, and that is a light brush against the wheel. If you are grinding you are wasting metal.

I think my pressure on the wheel is fairly light, but when sharpening some tools (particularly spindle gouge and 40/40), I was applying enough pressure directly down into the rest to cause some flex. Easy enough to correct, but I prefer a rest that’s more rigid.

 

[Bill Alston]

You have now heard of one in this group that has had issues with a perfectly manufactured CBN wheel.

A CBN must run true to avoid both sharpening and wear issues on both the tool and the wheel. That means the grinder shaft and connecting hardware must be precise to maintain zero runout. I had a grinder that worked beautifully with stone wheels because they were able to be trued to compensate for runout etc. Put a cbn wheel on, even with machined and spherical washers to compensate, I was not be able to true it up.
Most of the cheapo grinders out there today, their shafts and connections are not engineered out of the box for the accuracy required to get CBN wheels running true. Some can be fiddled with, others not. `

Yes, I’d agree with that. I bought a cheap grinder a while back for use on metal turning tools. I did as recommended and mounted it on my lathe for *truing up. I also bought a Diamond wheel for it and it was way off. I trued that up on the lathe as well then dressed the face,
CBN wheels can be as good as you like but grinders can be quite variable in my experience. Sometimes though any issues can easily be remedied if you have a metal turning lathe.

* The shaft was supposed to be 1/2” (12.7mm) with an M12 thread (left hand one end as usual). The shaft was actually under 12.6mm when I started but I’ve turned it down to 12mm. Obviously no good now for 1/2” stones but all the wheels I’ve got so far are 20mm bore so I’ve just turned some bushes to suit.

 

[Dan Hewitt]

Well, the Big Ugly tool is tantung which is silver soldered onto cold rolled steel. Not sure how well the joints in Stuart's tools will hold. With the Big Ugly, it has bar stock under the cutting material. The Woodcut coring system has stellite for its cutting tips. Not sure how it is applied, but silver solder would work. I have replaced a couple of my McNaughton tips with the tantung. Both tantung and stellite are cutting materials for the metal working world. There are a lot of exotic metals now. I had thought that one reason Doug Thompson doesn't use the V15 is because it is so brittle. I know Glaser did make some V15 gouges, but they were not all that popular. V10 and M42 for me at this point, but I could change my mind some time....

robo hippy

Hi all, confirming the Stellite cutter supplied for the Woodcut Bowl coring products includes silver solder on the underside of the cutter, so you simply need to heat this to apply the Stellite cutter to the Woodcut Bowlsaver blade/ knife.

 

[robo hippy]

Standard soldering won't work on the Big Ugly tool because the solder will not "wick" in very far from the sides. The ribbon is expensive. I did know of one guy who made a Big Ugly tool and took some standard soldering wire and pounded it flat, then torched it. That worked. Both stellite and tantung are amazing cutting materials. While not as durable of a cutting edge as carbide, they resharpen just fine with standard grinding wheels or CBN wheels. I did have one Big Ugly tool that had stellite on it, and it might have been a slightly finer cutting edge than the tantung. Don't know what happened to it though.

robo hippy