Chris Pouncey

Sorby tools and techniques.

July 20th 2005

Reviewed by Andy Masters

On a very hot evening Chris Pouncey set up his Nova DVR 3000 lathe and unpacked a large selection of Sorby tools to provide us with an almost unbiased view of how to use those tools and to answer some of our technical questions.

The lathe a versatile, middle-price machine was fitted with a Supernova chuck, Stebcentre drive, revolving Stebcentre and a 9in modular tool rest.

First Chris talked about sharpening. He pointed out that all the sharpening systems on the market are very useful. He advised that your grinder should be fitted with an 80 grit aluminium oxide wheel which needs to be kept properly dressed, ideally with a devil stone.

He then demonstrated various Sorby tools. First the Spindlemaster which is a safer version of the skew chisel that only needs its flat face honed to remain sharp. Next the RS200 was put through its paces with a demonstration of hollowing at 3,500 rpm followed by the simple efficiency of the Sandmaster.

At the break members took advantage of a table groaning under the weight of tools and equipment at reduced prices. Being a generous crowd we did our best to lighten Chris’s homeward journey.

Finally, Chris demonstrated how to cut spirals and textures with the texturing tool and spiralling system. The latter is the addition of an indexed rest and new cutting head to the former. The main difference in use being that a texture is produced when the tool rotates close to the direction of rotation while a spiral is made by applying the tool across the line of rotation. The tools worked quickly and gave impressive results but personally I felt that the cost was too high for an effect that I could soon tire of. soon tire of.