I have been wanting to make another pair of 6mm skew for my brother, and when I saw these HSS carving skews at the show, I decided they should do the job nicely, at $10 each. They were all the same orientation, so I had to regrind one as a ‘left’, & lost a small amount of metal but they are longer than necessary anyway, so no matter.
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I turned a couple of handles from the other half of the crotch piece of Bull Oak that I made the mini skew handles from. Then I decided that using the same wood on both was a bit boring, so turned up a couple of Myall handles instead. I’ll use the lovely Bull-oak for something else, so don’t worry, they’ll not be wasted! :;
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It all went pretty smoothly, I ground a tang on the handle end of each piece, & fitted them firmly to their handles. But when it came to sharpening them, I found the backs were even less flat than I thought, & it took quite a bit of work to get a flat right across the end. Here you can see the rounded edges quite clearly, & that’s after several hundred strokes on a coarse diamond hone.
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But eventually I got them flat enough, & had two sharp skews, able to give a very good account of themselves in the obligatory ‘paring Pine end-grain’ test.
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Now I have a dilemma – I rather like the new pair. I think I will I give bro the old pair & keep the new ones – they look quite at home with the ½” & minis....
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:U Cheers,