Dear everyone,
I’ve recently begun to try my hand at some different types of carving and am currently doing a relief carving. Most of my tools are Pfeil, but I do have some Flexcut tools as well. While I’m generally happy with my Pfeil tools, I’m not sure about the couple of short-bent gouges I own from them. It seems that there is so much of a bend that the cutting edge is basically perpendicular to the shaft of the tool, making it quite difficult to ‘push’ the tool through the wood.
Is this a question of technique or should the bend in short-bent gouges be a quarter of a circle or U instead of half of a circle or U? If there are better short-bent gouges (as far as shape), who makes them? It just seems to me that there is too much bend in Pfeil’s short bent gouges but, I don’t have enough experience to rule out technique.
Thanks for any input.
Matt
Replies
I assume that you are speaking of their spoon gouges. They do take a bit of practice to learn to use effectively. The technique is different when using them. If I remember rightly you use both hands and sort of scoot them along. They are also used inside of curved surfaces where they can sometimes be levered against the curve to get power into the cut stroke. I had similar dissapointment when I first tried them but with a little more reading and practice I got to where I found them reasonably useful. They are a specialty tool though and will never be an everyday type of useful cutter. It helps to have them exceptionally sharp (which is NOT easy). If you google around you might find a tutorial on their use. I thought that they would be useful for spoon carving but they turned out to have quite a different application. Their name is just related to their shape (not to their usefulness).
I'm starting to think maybe I'm not trying to use them in the right application either. Thanks for the response.Matt
What you are doing is very difficult. The grain changes direction right there and you are dealing with it in the base of a restrictive groove too. Cross-grain cuts won't work because there is no clearance to reach in with the gouge. About the best that you can do is to cut in from both directions, taking very fine finish cuts so as to align the cuts in the groove bottom as accurately as possible, and then finish with sandpaper or a rotary stone (like a ruby carver from Woodcraft).
Matt, the only time to use a tool other than a straight one is for clearance. If you don't need a curved gouge for a particular cut a straight one generally works better because the line of push is straight through the shank and handle. Curved shanks deflect this pressure but they do offer ways to make cuts a straight shank can't. To use a bent tool, particularly one with a sharp bend, one hand is on the shank immediately behind the cutting edge and the other is on the wooden handle. A mallet should not be used with any bent tool because it's so hard on the steel and handle.
Lee
Lee, Thanks for the response. Maybe I'm approaching the cut in the wrong way (or with the wrong tool). I'm grounding out a relief carving which has a number of concave curves (some that are fairly small and almost in the shape of the inside of a 'C'. I can use the appropriate sweeep gouge to carve straight down from the top to the background portion of the carving. But, I'm having trouble with in the area where the concave curve transitions at 90 degrees to the background of the carving (there the base of the inside of the 'C' meets the background). I've been trying to use a quick short-bent gouge horizontally to carve around the base of the curve. Maybe I need a gouge or two where the 'nose' of the gouge is further forward the the wings (sorry for what I'm sure is poor terminology).Matt
I'm not clear on what you're doing. Let's clear up some terminology- The ground is the background, the surface from which the modeled part rises. Then there is the modeled part. Try to explain it again and I'll try to offer a solution. There is certainly a way to do it with the tools you probably have without resorting to a tool with a cord.Lee
Lee, If the modeled part were a relatively small 'C', lying on top of a flat ground or background, I'm trying to carve the area where the inside of curve (the concave curve on the right side of the C above) meets the background (where the C and the background meet forming a 90 degree angle). I'm having trouble getting a good, clean corner where the inside curve of the C meets the backgroudn. I hope this is clearer. It would seem like the kind of thing that would come up fairly frequently.
Thanks for your time/input.Matt
Okay, I think I get it now. Set in the profile by making the vertical cut to the ground. Here's the carver's trick, once you've cleared out all the waste you gat get use a #3, 1/4" as a scraper. You don't need to sharpen it differently, just use it standing nearly vertically to the ground. This will give you those sharp transitions from the ground. I keep a couple of gouges for this purpose alone, a 1/4" and a 3/8" with sweeps of 3 or 4. If you dedicate tools to this purpose sharpen them by draging them lighl;y on a stone vertical to the surface, you can't turn a burr on this steel.Lee
Lee, Thanks for the tip. Did you mean to say you can turn a burr on a dedicated gouge or does dragging it lightly vertically across a stone do something else?
I also discovered last night that a fishtail gouge does a pretty good job getting in there because of the added side clearance.Thanks again.Matt
The steel used in carving tools is far too hard and brittle to form a decent burr compared to the softer steels found in scrapers. A tiny burr can be formed by dragging a carving tool across a stone but it's small and fragile however, for it's limited use this small and delicate burr will work well. Frankly, a well sharpened gouge will work just as well, it's just hard to use a gouge both as a scraper and carving gouge without spending a lot of time at a stone. Addittionally, dragging the gouge across the stone will make for a straighter edge, many people don't sharpen their tools with straight edges.Lee
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled