The Profiles Used in Turning Spindles

In woodturning,there are only a handful of basic profiles a woodturner would cut when turning spindles. As displayed in the image above, these basic shapes include:

• Fillet
• Cove
• V-Cut
• Bead
• Ogee
• Swell
• Hollow
• Flat

There are only four different types of tools one would need to cut these shapes: the roughing gouge, spindle gouge, skew chisel and parting tool.

Of course, there are a considerable number of variations on these basic shapes. For instance, the radius of a cove cut might vary depending on the desired profile. To create coves of different depths and widths, the woodturner would likely choose to employ different widths of spindle gouges, as a spindle gouge cannot cut a narrower cove than the width of the tool. A narrow spindle gouge can be used to cut a wide cove (as long as the woodturner has the requisite skill level), but a wide spindle gouge cannot be used to cut a narrow cove (as it simply won't fit into the narrow area).