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Crown Skewchigouge Wood Turning Tool

Summary

The Crown skewchigouge is a lathe tool invented by English woodturner Allan Beecham and manufactured by Crown Hand Tools Ltd. in Sheffield, England. It is claimed that the tool can perform most of the functions of both a skew chisel and a spindle gouge. At the same time, it is free from the problem of "catches" when slightly mishandled, which is the bane of the skew chisel.

In my opinion, these claims are entirely justified and I've found the tool to be a delight to use.

On the other hand, the description of the tool on the Woodcraft Web site ended with the ominous statement "Honing required before use". My tool arrived with a rather lop-sided grind. I quickly realized that I had no idea how to hone the tool, other than free-hand on my bench grinder. In short order I had made things much worse. I could find nothing on the Web to help me put things to rights. However, I was able, after a great deal of effort, to design and build a sharpening jig. This allowed me to not only correct my mistakes but get the tool sharper and more evenly shaped than when it was delivered (photo at right). I would hesitate to recommend the tool to anyone who can't either do a much better job than me with a free-hand grind or go to the trouble of building my sharpening jig (link below).

Detailed Review

I have not yet created a page on using the skewchigouge.

I have an entire page devoted to sharpening the skewchigouge.

References

• Allan Beecham's profile at the Woodworker's Institute.
• Product page at Crown Hand Tools Ltd.
• Instruction for the use of the BEECHAM skewchigouge by Allan Beecham.
• Product page at Woodcraft.
• Woodcraft Magazine Article.
• Product page at Lee Valley Tools.
• Product page at Packard Woodworks, Inc.