It can be very helpful when buying a new tool to have the opinions of a fellow turner as a guide. Alan Naylor, an experienced turner
from Limal in Belgium was kind enough to volunteer his first impressions of the SuperTip 2000 multi-tip tool from Henry Taylor, as follows:-"One real plus points is, I think, the robustness of the tool. It really
does have the feel of an ordinary bowl gouge. Also, the ease of changing the tips (and no fiddly socket-headed screws and Allen keys to lose in the shavings) means that there is no excuse for not using the best tip for
the job. So far I have just tightened the tip by hand and not found any problem in use. One negative point is that the tip-to-shank junction is not as smooth as the adverts suggest. I think this may be exacerbated by
the design of tool rests I am using - with a rather small radius edge.
As far as concerns the tips themselves, I spent some time using the angled tip on a deep straight(ish)-sided bowl with a small radius where
bottom joins side. In the past I have resorted to a 3/8 inch gouge ground to a 65 degree bevel for the difficult bits of inside work on this sort of bowl. The new tip certainly seems to do this faster and better, with
less resistance to the cut and less tendency for tear-out. It will take a little time to find the best presentation (angle of rotation of the flute in particular) for different situations, but so far it is very
promising. One slight iritation was a tendency for the flute to trap the shavings, presumably because the flute is short and very deep at the 'back' end. It is difficult to see how this could be improved without using
a longer tip and performing a second milling operation on the back of the flute - then we probably could not afford it! I did get a bit twitchy to find the left-hand 'wing' of the tool getting close to a dig-in on a
couple of occasions and do wonder if the tool might benefit from being ground back a little more - but it is early days to think of design changes!
I have had a little play with the loop tip. Again, first
impressions are very favourable. It certainly solves the clogging problem, and the two bevel angles seem to be very well chosen.
There is not a lot to say about the other 'conventional' tips. I would prefer a longer
bevel on the 'Irish' grind (although I can hardly list this as a criticism). Personally, I feel that the relatively short bevel provided offers too few advantages over a 'nearly straight across' grind and and doesn't
justify the increased difficulty of control. Against that, perhaps the shorter bevel is much easier to grind freehand and may suit more people. It is interesting to compare this with my old bowl gouges. Over the
years my 'standard' grind for a bowl gouge (not the Superflute) has developed from straight-across into something about one quarter or even one third of the bevel length of the HT 'Irish' grind. The Superflute I grind
very nearly straight-across, with just a hint of a nose.
My overall impression was very favourable and full marks to Henry Taylor for the innovations,but I still think that a set of instructions would have been a good
idea.
