The catch: what happened when the skew bit back
Every turner has a story about the skew chisel, and this is mine. I was turning a tool handle from a piece of ash, about 30 cm long and 32 mm in diameter, at 2000 rpm, doing a planing cut along the cylinder to leave the smooth surface the skew is famous for. It was going beautifully, a continuous ribbon of shaving curling off the edge. Then the heel of the skew touched the wood, the tool was yanked out of my hands and slammed against the tool rest, and there was a spiral gouge 3 mm deep running most of the length of the handle.
Nobody was hurt, which is the first thing to say. The tool rest was set at the right height and I was standing to one side of the line of the work, which is why it was the bench that took the hit and not me. The handle was ruined and I needed a cup of tea. The blank went on the pile to become something shorter.
The skew cuts with the lower third of its edge, roughly, with the bevel rubbing the wood behind the cut and the tool presented at about 45 degrees to the axis. The catch happens when the point or the heel, rather than that safe part of the edge, touches the spinning wood. The edge digs in, the wood grabs it, and because the lathe has far more power than you do, the tool goes where the wood says. I had let the handle drift so the heel dropped into the cut. It takes a fraction of a second.
What I did afterwards was go back to the beginning and spend an evening making nothing. A length of soft pine between centers, roughed to a cylinder, and then planing cuts with the skew for an hour, concentrating only on where the edge was touching. Every time the shaving changed sound I stopped and looked at the position of the tool. By the end of the hour I could feel the bevel riding and knew what the edge was doing without looking down at it. I have had one small catch since, on a bead, and none on a planing cut. The spiral-gouged handle sits on the windowsill of the garage where I can see it from the lathe, which is the best safety poster I own.