One Man's Woodcraft: Sharpness 2

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One Man's Woodcraft: Carving.

Sharpness: Part 2

Rod's Sharpening Tools.


Having given the Green Man cause for serious dismay, He hasn't recovered yet.
What I'd done was to follow his suggestion and pencil in a couple of enhancements, then proceeded to cut... to the wrong lines.

Yes.

Being not overly concerned about symmetry is not quite the same as ignoring balance. So here's another substitute:


Considering the main title of these little lectures, we'll take a quick look at woodturning and woodcarving gouges which have a bevel on one side only - the back. Turning tools other than gouges may have bevels each side.

For wood turning, the bowl gouge bevel angle is nominally a fairly hardwearing 40 degrees - it can be a bit less, or maybe as much as 50 degrees depending on the type of wood and the turner's preference. Spindle gouges will have a more acute bevel angle while parting tools and skew gouges will usually have two, more acute, bevels.

For wood carving, the bevel angle is somewhat more acute than a bowl gouge, at a nominal 20 degrees. Much pointier than that means that the edge is less robust – useful, perhaps, for finishing cuts on awkward grain but requiring re-edging more often.

One other major difference (briefly mentioned in a previous article) is honing:
Turning: generally speaking, you won't hone your tools. The speed of the wood moving against your tool is the whole point of the cutting thereof and (mostly) you won't get much in the way of tear-out of the grain. When you do get tear-out, sharpen the tool and wind the lathe speed up a bit (you can try honing but you'll probably find that careful sharpening, faster lathe speed and sandpaper are more efficient).
Carving: You will need to hone. A tool, no matter how carefully you sharpen it, won't be sharp enough to cut cleanly in all (if any) directions of the grain in your piece of wood and therefore it will be much more difficult to work, whereas a nicely sharpened and honed tool gives pleasurably clean and crisp cuts. You may well be able to hone a tool several, perhaps even many, times (3, 5... 10?) before it becomes apparent that a sharpening session is in order.

The picture shows the bevel on a carving gouge. It was sharpened on the water wheel (abhorred by some if not many proper carvers) then honed by hand on a flat stone, so you may see the grinding marks towards the middle and the polished, honed edges at the toe and heel.

What you do not do is to sharpen a tool to one bevel angle then later to another then later another, for different purposes – that eats steel and would quickly get very time-consuming - and expensive.

From the above you may have surmised, and you may not be entirely wrong, that turners and carvers tend to accumulate tools. Earlier acquisitions (after building up a useful kit) are likely to be as duplicates in order to extend cutting time between sharpening sessions then later, after more experience, for use in different situations.

Though it's pleasant to buy new, someone else's previously loved tools can be just as useful - and you never know, that someone may be smiling down on you, eh?

Articles by Rod

Rod

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