Though I had heard quite a bit about the dangers of tearout when using a skew chisel (tearout happens when you do not get a clean cut when turning, and a chunk of the wood comes out instead of shavings), I had not personally experienced it in a way that was detrimental to my craft...until today. I made a Bullet Tip Pen (which, aside from the tearout, actually came out quite well) and a Classic American Pencil (ditto) out of bloodwood. In both cases, the item was nice and smooth and had a great finish...except for small tears in the wood that were too deep to sand out. So, I have a pen and pencil that I can use, but cannot really give away or sell.
My next step is to sharpen my tools again. In order to do this, I need to set up the other side of the jig that is on my sharpening system. The sharpening system has two wheels - one rough, one fine. The rough one is for setting the edge on a tool, but it removes a lot of steel if you use it all the time for sharpening (which I have, up to now). The fine one is to keep tools sharp. I need to set up the jig on the fine side, so that I can sharpen the skew chisel and the roughing gouge, and avoid tearout in the future.
I also need to buy another Classic American kit (or 10), as I promised my wife that I would make her friend a letter opener (already made) with a matching CA style pen or pencil. The pencil today would have been perfect...except for the tearout. I will try to get a good picture of the tearout, but it may be tough to get on camera. Unfortunately, that does not mean that the tearout cannot be noticed with the naked eye.
Luckily, I have a lot more bloodwood to work with, once my tools are sharp again.
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