Beginner Woodturning? These 6 Tools Cover 95% of Everything

There is a new film up, and it answers the question I get asked more than any other: which tools do I actually need to get started?

Standing in front of a tool rack for the first time is a peculiar sort of paralysis. Dozens of shapes, most of them expensive, and very little to tell you which ones you will actually reach for.

Six will do it. A spindle roughing gouge, a bowl gouge, a spindle gouge, a round nose scraper, a parting tool and a skew chisel will handle between 95 and 98 per cent of the turning you will ever do.

The bowl gouge is the most versatile of them, a round bar with a deep flute cut below the centre point. It works on bowls of every size, and on larger spindle work too. The spindle gouge has a narrower bar and a much shallower flute, and it is built for spindles rather than bowls.

The spindle roughing gouge catches people out. Its bar is flat steel rolled into a U shape, and the tang is small, so it will not take the load of bowl turning. Keep it between centres.

The round nose scraper earns its place cleaning the bottom of shallow bowls and removing marks the gouges leave behind. I would leave the skew chisel in the rack for now. It is brilliant once you understand it, and temperamental until your angles are sorted on the other five.

The film also walks through the anatomy of a gouge, the flute, the bevel, the shoulders and the heel. Knowing where those sit explains most catches before they happen, which is a better reason to learn them than any exam.

One last thing. Buy from a recognised brand. Better steel, better support, better advice when something goes wrong.