Gouge sharpening on flat waterstone.

[bigolbassguy]

I'm never satisfied with the results I get trying to hone a gouge. I'm wondering if anyone here uses a flat stone to sharpen their gouges, or if I just need to break down and get a gouge slip? I can literally shave with my regular chisels. Not so much so with the gouges. They'll take a few hairs off my arm, but not like I feel they should.

[Eric Swanson]

I am not a luthier, but I have done a fair amount of carving, plus spent several years free-hand grinding, honing, and setting up profiled moulding knives (to match existing wood mouldings). All to say, I have dealt with profiled tools, a bit.

Whether or not one is going for the grind-and-buff method of dealing with your gouges, etc., a set of slips is a good, pretty minor investment, in my limited opinion. Without them, how can we effectively deburr the inside edge of our tools? Moreover, using the slips, primarily for gouges, etc. helps keep our (supposedly) flat stones flat; which is essential if we want them in good, efficient shape for maintaining flat plane irons, scrapers, and chisels.

If one grinds, then hones lightly with the slips, bringing the stone to the tool is handy, especially for the smaller gouges, v-parting tools, etc. The slips are also really handy for the beensy tools; tiny routers, chisels, plane irons, etc.

I have used both the soft water slips and harder oil-soaked varieties. I ended up liking the water slips because they are easily dressed to shape, and are inexpensive. The hard, oil ones work fine, too, but I find it best to use either all water or all oil stones. I keep my slips wet in old yogurt containers filled with water. Fussy folks segregate their slips by grit; I am sometimes a bit more casual.

I rarely use any slip but my finest, anyway. I go straight from the grinding wheel to the fine slip. The knack, for me, has been to learn to grind lightly, with no pressure, "floating" the tool to shape, without burning it. If my grind is good, the hone and/or buff is very fast.

I don't touch any coarse or medium slips on the back of any carving tool, once the back is polished and flat, I don't want to spoil it with any stone but a fine one. Like a chisel or plane, I don't "dub" over the back, unless I am doing an intentional back bevel, with a corresponding, more acutely ground bevel on the front. In any event, the actual, final sharpness angle (front and back bevels, combined) I like is in the neighborhood of 45 degrees, for hardwoods. Less (sharper, around 40 degrees or so) for softwoods.

My 2c, from a non-luthiery woodworker. I have also had good results with a cool-grinding, soft wheel (I like to grind, using coolant steadily flooding the grinding point, circulated with a pump), then buffing on the bevel and deburring with a very fine slip.

Nearly every woodworker I know does it slightly differntly...

[powerbass]

Eric pretty much covered what I would say. I was a professional woodworker for many years. I have a japanese waterstone slip I used which you can sand any profile/radius you want. The other tool I like is a leather strop. You can take a small piece of leather and bend in between your fingers to the desired radius, make sure you keep the leather flat so that, as Eric mentioned you don't round over the edge of chisel. There are polishing rouges you can use on the leather. What I did was use the slurry from my waterstones as a rouge, let it dry on the leather. The other thing you can use is very fine sandpaper, there are super fine grades. You could shape a piece of maple to the desired radius then glue a small piece of sandpaper on the wood. Many ways to skin the cat

[ctregan]

Ceramic slip stones work great for honing the inside edge of carving tools. They do not need oil or water like other stones, so its clean and handy.

I try to keep the inside edge straight with no bevel, so the tool profile does not change.

The most difficult part of carving wood is learning how to sharpen the tools!

http://edge-u-cation.info/catalog/de...php?product=90

[Matthew Tucker]

On an outside-bevel gouge, I polish the flat surface as mirror-shiny as I can with slipstones or wet and dry wrapped around a dowel. Not always possible, depends on the metal and your patience.

Then I place the stone on the bench sideways in front of me, and holding the gouge by the handle and anchoring my elbow at my side to get a constant angle, I sweep the gouge back and forth across the stone, rotating the blade as i move from side to side. I hole the gouge with my right hand and guide and rotate with my left hand.

I finish the bevel with a light touch on a polishing wheel.

[Jack Clark]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

On an outside-bevel gouge, I polish the flat surface as mirror-shiny as I can with slipstones or wet and dry wrapped around a dowel. Not always possible, depends on the metal and your patience.

Then I place the stone on the bench sideways in front of me, and holding the gouge by the handle and anchoring my elbow at my side to get a constant angle, I sweep the gouge back and forth across the stone, rotating the blade as i move from side to side. I hole the gouge with my right hand and guide and rotate with my left hand.

Taking this one step further, I built a stone "cradle" like my carving instructor had to do this very job, but making it much more easy and accurate to maintain the same outside bevel angle. You take a piece of 2"x4" longer than your stone, and then make some wooden rockers for each end by cutting 4" arcs off of a 6" diameter wheel cut from a piece of 2"x8" (or even a 2"x6"--it's not that critical.) It looks a lot like an old fashioned rocking cradle for a doll. Then you set the stone on the bed of the cradle (nailing narrow wood strips for a frame on the cradle bed help hold the stone in place on the cradle bed) and use it as Matthew described above.

The advantage is that when you press the beveled edge into the stone, it automatically will rock slightly toward you to make the bevel edge fully contact the stone at the correct angle. You don't have to try to hold your hand at the same angle. Works much better, easier, and faster than using the stone on a flat, unmoving bench top while trying to keep your hand at the same angle.

[bigolbassguy]

This is all great advice, and a lot to mull over... nice. And Thank You.

[Matthew Tucker]

Nice idea for the rocker, I might have to try that!

The method i use (I think from Darnton on MN) involves keeping a straight right arm from elbow locked at hip, through wrist through to blade. As long as the stone is the same height it's quite easy to get the angle right, and unlike a smoothing plane blade, it doesn't have to be PERFECT.

Also I have to add, DON'T use the same stone for gouges as you use for your plane blades!! The gouge sharpener will be full of grooves in no time ...

[Jack Clark]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

Nice idea for the rocker, I might have to try that!

'Course, the rocking-cradle only works if you already have the correct outside bevel on your gouge. It just easily maintains that same bevel when sharpening your gouge while you're working with it. If you have to establish a new bevel angle for some reason, then you've got to go with something major.

[bigolbassguy]

So after sifting through all of this great information (thanks again!) I'm going to try making a slip from maple and wet/dry.

Just FYI - My dad was an accomplished woodcarver and taught me how to sharpen when I was a kid . All freehand technique with Ark. oilstones. Just made the transition to waterstones a couple of months ago. Could be related???

thanks for the link, ctregan.

[bigolbassguy]

Matt - tried the side-sharpening technique out of curiosity (on a 20mm #5 Dastra) and it worked great... Best results I've had yet. It's cutting those sexy translucent swiss cheese-looking shavings now Many thanks.

I only have one 8000 grit stone, though - and since I need a dedicated gouge sharpener I'm just going to order a nice water slip and a strop. After giving it some thought, I decided that a maple slip would lack flexibility when dealing with different sweeps.

Eric - a belated thanks for the in-depth response. It was very helpful - as was everyone else's input.

[bigolbassguy]

Bump alert.

Anyone have tips for sharpening an 8mm curved Ibex plane blade?

[powerbass]

Originally Posted by bigolbassguy

Bump alert.

Anyone have tips for sharpening an 8mm curved Ibex plane blade?

If you are sharpening carving tools and curved plane blades frequently a stone, or 2 dedicated to these tools is a good idea since the curved blade will wear a curve into the stone. Sharpening flat chisels and plane blades need flat stones. You can get by with flat stones if you are careful. I prefer oil stones since they are harder, water stones are excellent, though soft and you will be need to re flatten the stone more frequently. If the Ibex plane is new or hasn't been set up properly I would start by polishing the back/flat side of the blade making it absolutely flat with a mirror polish. Then I sharpen the bevel side by rocking it along the bevel in a side/side motion making sure my finger pressure is keeping the bevel flat on the stone - start with a medium/coarse stone to produce a burr, then switch to a polishing stone - only use a flat fine stone on the flat side of the blade for burr removal. I think it is not necessary to go crazy with super fine honing - if the plane is used to remove a lot wood then you will be resharpening frequently. If you wanted to do finishing work or if you had difficult, figured grain then a super fine honing would be better. I prefer a flat bevel without a secondary bevel and I almost exclusively sharpen my chisels and plane blades by hand - I use a hand crank grinder if I have a nick or if I need to re establish a bevel. The next step is to tune up the plane body. Make sure the surface where the blade rests is flat. You may need to flatten/polish the plane body bottom. Those Ibex planes are very small - a piece of sandpaper spray mounted on a jointer table provides a nice flat surface for plane sole flattening. Hold the plane firmly and square with the blade installed and tensioned though back off the blade so that it does not protrude - there is a slight deformation to a plane body when the blade is held tightly in place - you want to flatten the sole with this deformation in place.

[bigolbassguy]

Thanks PB. I will try this.

Since I originally posted this thread, I have made a set of dedicated slips for each of my gouges. They are about 14" long with correct sweep cut into them. 600-1200 wet-dry glued to the surface. I clamp the slip to my bench and use a jig to hone. If I want to go crazy, I strop the blade by hand with leather/slurry from my waterstone. The tiny ibex iron is too small for my jig, and I don't want to screw up the sweep when hand-sharpening.

These tips should help.

[powerbass]

I briefly studied carving with a master carver from Greece who just threw all his chisels into a drawer. He had 2 stones, a flat oil stone that was worn into a curve - it didn't matter what radius the chisel had, he worked them all side/side, rocking them on the convex side. He also had a very small polishing stone that was only used on the inner/concave side, this he held between thumb and index finger, this stone was also rounded. He kept the sharpening process really simple.

[Jack Clark]

I just happened to re-read my post, above, regarding how to make a cradle for your whetstone cradle for sharpening gouges, and it needs some improvement. Unfortunately, it's too late to edit it, I guess, so I'm going to try to do a better job here:

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

. . . I place the stone on the bench sideways in front of me, and holding the gouge by the handle and anchoring my elbow at my side to get a constant angle, I sweep the gouge back and forth across the stone, rotating the blade as i move from side to side. I hold the gouge with my right hand and guide and rotate with my left hand.

Taking this one step further, I built a stone "cradle" like my carving instructor used (she got it from her father, a master wood carver in the Netherlands) to do this very job, but making it much more easy and accurate to maintain the same outside bevel angle. You take a piece of 1"x4" (or even 2"x4") an inch or so longer and an inch or so wider than your stone, and then make some wooden rockers for under each end by cutting 4" arcs off of a larger diameter wooden wheel (probably 8" or 10" in diameter would work better than 6") cut from a piece of 2"-by (or even 1"-by—it's not that critical.) When you glue the rockers under the ends of the cradle bed, it looks a lot like an old fashioned rocking cradle for a doll that would rock the doll sideways. Then you set the stone on the bed of the cradle (nailing and/or gluing narrow molding strips for a frame onto the cradle bed around the stone to help hold the stone in place) and use it as Matthew described above—moving your gouge from side to side along the length of the stone.

The advantage is that when you press the beveled edge into the stone from the side of the cradle, the cradle will automatically rock slightly toward you to make the bevel edge fully contact the stone at the correct angle as you move the gouge against it, side to side. You don't have to try hard to hold your hand and gouge at the same angle. Works much better, easier, and faster than using the stone on a flat, unmoving bench top while trying to keep your hand at the same angle.

Of course, the sharpening cradle only works if you already have the correct outside bevel on your gouge. It just easily maintains that same bevel when sharpening your gouge as you're working with it. I cqn hone my gouges quickly with this system every few minutes, as needed. But if you need to re-establish a new bevel angle for some reason, then you've got to go with something more major.

I've been out of wood carving for a lot of years—decades even so I thought maybe these cradles were commercially made now. But I just checked on a search engine, and it appears that you still have to make your own, I guess. I still use mine in my work shop on the rare occasions when I do need to sharpen a gouge these days.

[Jake deVilliers]

Jack, that's a great idea - thanks!