We all know that we have to sharpen our tools regularly in order to keep them sharp. That's just a fact of life with turning wood.
But if you have HSS gouges that have been made in China (often sold by P.S.I., H.F. and others), you might be suffering from non-hardened steel. Most U.K. and U.S. manufacturers will machine their turning tools and then harden the steel. Most hardening is done by heat treating and you can learn more on the heating treating wiki.
If you have turning tools where the metal has not been hardened, this is the reason why these tools won't hold a sharp edge as long. A simple test can be done to check if the tool is hard or soft. Take a used mill file, you don't want to ruin a new file, turn the gouges over and file the corner at the bottom of the bevel. If the file cuts a flat on that corner the gouge is soft.
Note: I keep talking only about gouges and that is because all the flat imported HSS tools that I've checked have been hardened correctly. This includes: skews, scrapers and parting tools.
Now if you find yourself with some soft steel gouges, don't be alarmed as you can do something about it. Your gouges can be sent to a commercial steel heat treating company and hardened.
I recently sent 13 gouges from our local turning club to be hardened and they all came back hardened to the 60 to 62 rockwell on the C scale. The cost for hardening these tools is about $6.00 a pound plus shipping. So our final cost was about $8.00 to $10.00 per tool which included shipping. You can get lower per pound hardening prices for larger quantities.
To get started, call a steel heat treating company in your area and ask them if they can harden M2 HSS tool steel. Tell them that you want them to harden some HSS M2 steel tools to a rockwell 60 to 62 on the C scale.
They may optionally (read for more money) offer to sand blast and straighten your tools. I choose not to have the tools sand blasted and straightened as I didn't feel it was necessary.
But do check to make sure if there is an minimum charge for heat treating. Combining your heat treating with other members of your local club could significantly reduce the cost for all of you!
If you can't find a company in your area, you can send your tools to:
Hi-Tech Steel Treating, Inc.
2720 Roberts St.
Saginaw. MI. 48601,
Phone 1-800-835-8294
