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I purchased this tool
the middle of 2009 and it cost an excruciating £180 from
axminster, it was in a moment of total madness but I have it in
the workshop.
I have had to do some pretty
hefty hollowing recently so I put down the "Woodcut
Hollowing Tools" and picked up the Roly.
My first thought was that it
is VERY light weight and did not have a robust feel about it,
which is just not true when using it.
The handle is 50 cm long
and the bar including tool carrier is 48 cm.
I like the big knob which can
be switched from one side to the other, although I'm not sure of
the advantage of this when you can just twist the whole thing
around. The big round knob certainly gives you purchase
when using the tool, the handle is a nice size and a good feel
in the hand, the coating is like a textured rubber compound and
this stops it slipping around in your hand.
Depth of cut adjustment if
simple, its just a case of loosening the blade cover with the
Alan key and sliding it forward or back.
I tried it in use with dry and
wet wood, the wet wood was a dream to cut, as you would expect,
the dry wood did suffer from some clogging but overall I found
it a great tool with fast clearance of waste wood.
Sharpening is easy either in
tool or in the little blade holder you can buy, its a case of
stroking with a diamond file and that's it, because its a round
blade (see above) you can just rotate the edge and give yourself
a sharp profile to use.
The shear scraper attachment,
is easy to put on and the angle its set at assists in getting
the correct angle for scrapping, I found this again, easy to use
and effective.
The real test came however
when one of the newer guys, Tam, wanted to hollow a medium sized
hollow form, I tried him out with the "Kelton
Hollower" , my normal choice for newer users and also gave
him a shot with the "woodcut system". The wood he was
hollowing at the time was some VERY dry Laburnum and he was
having some difficulty with it. I passed Tam the Roly
Munroe tool and told him to give it a shot (I had set up the
depth and angle of cut for him). The hollowing proceeded
at a much better pace and Tams opinion is that the Roly tool was
the easiest to use and when he could put the money together it
would be at the top of his wish list.
I think that the above speaks
for itself, it is an easy tool to use, its comfortable and fast,
I am not so sure about the price tag but its a great tool
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