Years ago, I made up a rear parting tool to the design of George Thomas and despite changes from one lathe to another, it has never faltered.
I simply followed the 'words and music' and ground up and ordinary Eclipse HSS parting off blade. Well, almost

The top- which is really the bottom has a specified Vee kerf of 140 degrees and I was windy about doing the trick without a T&C( then) and I settled for a rounded kerf done with cheap Chinese pillar drill going 'flat out' with a worn thin and rounded angle grinder disk. After all, it is only a kerf of of an inch- which will part off 2" round. Thomas, the great pedant Guru specified a front edge of a male vee of 140 degrees which is a far easier task. And then when it all blunted, I simply ground the front edge flat.
With it running- in the the Myford forwards- 'cos the chucks unscrew- it peels off up to 2" in a continuous narrowed ribbon- downwards.
As I said, dead easy and really, what is all the fuss. Whether a tool is a penknife or something more exotic, it is only cutting- or not.
I didn't invent it- nor did Thomas, some Gezira Gizinta did it in Ancient Eygpt at the time of the Pharoahs -when he stuffed his dead Mummy
