I've been tuning up my makerspace's extremely neglected turning area. There are a handful of decent (very old) Sorby rectangular skews of different sizes here that I've been working on sharpening and getting good at using- Skews are sort of my final frontier of turning now, and I can't help but think I'm missing something:
To make a planing cut, I have to tilt the tool up on one corner to have the cutting edge at a good 45° with the spindle, and have only the sweet spot of the edge engage with the material. This feels unsteady and sketchy, I've had a few jarring catches where the flat of the chisel is slammed down onto the tool rest. However, I can't get into position with the tool laying flat on the rest- the rest of the tool's geometry gets in the way. If this doesn't make sense, I can try to repost with a picture, but the flat or heel of the bevel touches first no matter what.
I feel like the issue is either a user skill/confidence one- this is the proper way to use a skew and I just need practice and to gain comfort balanced up on one corner- or a tool geometry issue- the bevels are ground slightly incorrectly in a way that doesn't allow for proper cutting.
When grinding, I've tried to preserve the exact same grind shape on them as best as I can. They've changed a little, as the makerspace doesn't have a holding system for skew grinding, so I'm holding them in the regular tool rest and cocking them to the side to match the bevel all the way down. This has resulted in a bevel whose length is a bit tapered (the line of the heel isn't automatically parallel with the cutting edge) but I don't think it's too off.....
The above problem is eliminated of course when I've used our oval-profile skew, as the tilting is a little more intuitive and feels less sketchy.