I've noticed that a lot of people seem to use their wood lathe tools pretty much indiscriminately, they fire up their lathe, get a piece of wood turning and grab whatever chisel, gouge or spear is nearest at hand and start carving away.
This works to a certain extent, but results are not going to be as good as they could be.
In order to turn a professional looking piece it's absolutely necessary to use the right tools for the job.
So, what is the right tool? In some cases it's obvious and easy to correct, but many people still don't bother.
Take roughing as an example.
I know a lot of people who will make their roughing cuts with a skew chisel! Hard to believe, but I've seen it many times.
They don't even seem to notice that it takes them the batter part of half an hour to get their piece of wood looking rounded around the edges, or the fact that their chisel is bent and chipped from all the heavy roughing they do with it.
They start with the skew chisel, and you had better believe they just keep on going with it! I've seen projects turned from the first cut to the final cutting off with just one chisel.
So if you're one of the people who does this kind of thing, or just not certain what tool is best for scalloping, I will try to go over the most common wood lathe tools and explain the function and form of each one a little bit.
The first one is easy.
It's your roughing gouge.
This is a big chisel with a rounded nose and a 'U' shaped profile.
This gouge is designed for one purpose and one purpose only.
Making your piece of wood with it's rough square cross section into a rough cylinder.
Any tool could do this eventually, but it goes a lot quicker with a big gouge like this.
Next up we have the skew chisel.
This is a smaller chisel with a flat angled end.
It is well suited for smoothing, trimming and making those tricky v-cuts.
Since it's such a versatile piece of equipment, it's normal that it will get a lot of use, but that doesn't mean it should be used for everything.
The parting chisel is a pointed tool that is roughly diamond shaped.
The fine, sharp point is very good for cutting off at the end of a project, and also for making very small delicate trims, but not much else.
This tool will likely stay in the box for most of a project and only come out at the end.
Finally for turning scallops or groves you are going to want to use a round nosed chisel.
This is similar in many ways to your roughing gouge, having a similar shape and profile, but it's smaller and better suited to precise carving.