Best Wood Lathe Tools for Your Woodturning Hobby or Business
High quality & affordable HSS turning tools, carbide tools, grinders & sharpening jigs
Whether you own a mini or midi lathe, it probably only came with the most basic faceplate and live center.
While these are good to test out the machine, you’ll realize pretty soon that there are a ton of extra stuff you might need to turn the fancy bowls, wood pens and tool handles you’ve seen on YouTube.
The most essential wood lathe tools are great turning chisels, followed by a 4-jaw chuck and drill chuck. With these, you can turn just about anything to the limits of your lathe.
There are two types of chisels:
- HSS or High-Speed Steel: It has a Steep learning curve, but it can be sharpened easily and shaped to specific grinds using a bench grinder.
- Carbide tools: These are beginner-friendly turning tools that use a replaceable carbide tip. When the tips get dull, you can either rotate them or replace them.
When you get into specific turning, for example, pen turning or bowl turning, you’ll also need buy wood turning tools that are specialized to the task.
I’ve listed the best mid-range wood turning lathe tools in each category, with separate links to cheaper or premium versions where available.
HSS Wood Lathe Tools
HSS (High-Speed Steel) lathe tools are the most common type of turning chisels you can find, although carbide tools are catching up very quickly. HSS is hard, and can easily outlast standard carbon steel blades.
Although you can buy each turning chisel separately, the last thing you want is to not have the right tool for the job. This is why my first purchase was the Savannah HSS lathe tools set.
The steel is about 5-1/4″ and the 10-3/4″ handles are made of hardwood, probably beech. You’ll get a 3/16″ parting tool, a 5/8″ scraper, a 1″ skew chisel, a 5/8″ round nose scraper, a 1/2″ bowl gouge, a 3/4″ spindle gouge, a 5/8″ spear scraper and a 7/8″ roughing gouge.
The turning chisels come in a nicely wood box for easy storage. With this set, you can turn just about anything from pens to bowls.
Alternatives:
When you want to turn really small object, or add very fine details, you’ll wish you had a set of these 10″ mini chisels.
The set includes a 1/4-inch roughing gouge, a 1/8-inch spindle gouge, a 1/4-inch round nose scraper, a 3/32-inch parting tool and a 1/4-inch skew chisel.
I’ve found the mini spindle gauge and parting tool to be the most useful of all. The PSI Woodworking mini chisels set comes in an attractive wooden display box
Alternatives:
Carbide Wood Lathe Tools
Today, carbide lathe tools are becoming more popular than ever because of how easy it is to use. Unlike a HSS lathe tool, it doesn’t require sharpening and is very straightforward to operate.
Each carbide tool comes with replaceable tips. When a tip is dull, you can simply rotate it for a fresh edge. When it is completely dull, you can simple replace the carbide insert.
This set of large carbide lathe tools by Savannah has almost perfect ratings on Amazon. It has a solid wood ash handle that is coated with a comfortable rubber grip, and a flat side for stability while turning. Handle length is approximately 13-1/2”. You get a square, round and diamond carbide head, which is pretty much standard across all carbide sets.
Although Easy Wood Tools (link below) was once the leader in carbide turning tools, other manufacturers like Savannah can give you the same thing for half the price.
Alternatives:
Simple Woodturning Tools Interchangeable Carbide Tools
- $169 or less
Interchangeable carbide turning tools make a lot of sense. Instead of using up precious space for three large tools, you can easily swap between four different types of carbides with Simple Woodturning Tools.
The tools are CNC machined 1/2″ solid stainless steel, with overall length of 12″. The square shafts make it easy to keep tools flat on the tool rest.
The handle is CNC machined from solid aircraft aluminum with a soft foam rubber grip.
Alternatives:
Lathe Chucks & Accessories
A good lathe chuck will make all the different in your woodturning. The PSI Barracuda chuck is one of the most popular options for mini and midi lathes. Unlike other chuck systems, it comes with a set of four jaws that can be used for turning bowls, spindles and everything in-between.
Plus, it costs under $200, which is much lesser than buying a chuck and jaws separately from other brands like Nova. The Barracuda chuck comes default with a 1″ x 8TPI thread, with an included adapter for 1″ x 16TPI.
Alternatives:
Lathe Tool Sharpening & Jigs
When using HSS tools, you’ll need to invest in a good grinder and sharpening jigs to get repeatable grinds quickly. A slow speed grinder like this Rikon is the best. Normal grinders have fixed, high RPMs that can cause excessive heat and remove too much of the HSS with each grind.
8″ wheels are better than 6″ wheels, as they do not cause too much of a concave surface on your lathe tools. This Rikon includes 1” x8” 60 grit and 120 grit white aluminum oxide wheels. It has a powerful ½ HP motor that is fixed at 1750 RPMs. The base is made of cast iron with anti-vibration rubber feet.
Other features include an adjustable eye shield and spark resistors. To keep the wheels flat, you’ll also need a diamond wheel dresser.
Alternatives:
Oneway Wolverine Grinding System (With Varigrind Jig)
- $139 or less
Even with a bench grinder like the Rikon or WEN, sharpening your lathe tools freehand is extremely difficult. The Wolverine Grinding System is the go-to system for sharpening all your HSS lathe tools.
For bowl gauges, the included Varigrind jig gives you the swivel you need to achieve that perfect wing and bevel. To make the Wolverine system work, you’ll need to construct a base for your bench grinder, and attach the Wolverine bases in the correct position.
The included guide will show you exactly how to do that, but you can also find several great YouTube videos that walk you through the entire process. Although there are alternatives to the Oneway Wolverine system, they are not much cheaper and are essentially copies of the system.
Alternatives:
A strong competitor to the Wolverine system, the ProGrind jig allows you to sharpen wood lathe turning tools, chisels and plane irons easily.
A few key advantages that the ProGrind has is the height-adjustable toolrest for sharpening lathe tools that do not require a curve, and the slotted platform that allows you to easily hone a bevel and a micro-bevel for chisels.
It also comes with more setup blocks than the Wolverine system, which allows fast and repeatable grinding to specific angles.
The ProGrind system is quickly gaining popularity among woodturners, and is highly recommended.
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