¶ Carving Chisels
¶ Characteristics and Types
A gouge is largely specified by its sweep and width, the sweep being a manufacturers number for a certain configuration of a gouge. The width is measured between the outside tips of a gouge's cutting edge.
Sweeps #1 - #10 usually describe straight gouge irons with a curvature to the cutting edge from straight (#1) to nearly half-circle (#10). Other sweeps are mostly up to the manufacturer and differ and even between manufacturers, a #3 is most likely not the same.
Gouge cutting edges commonly have the bevel on the outside, but there are in-cannel gouges that are sharpened on the inside used e.g. for flutes.
There are straight irons, gently bend ones, heavily bent ones (also called spoon bent or swan neck) and back bent ones (which are basically spoon bent/in-cannel gouges)
¶ straight
¶ bent
¶ spoon bent
¶ back bent
no image
¶ spoon gouge
¶ veiner
The U-shaped gouge is also called a veiner.
¶ v-tools
V-tools come in different angles.
¶ Buying carving tools
¶ Sculpture carving
Get carving gouges by Pfeil, Stubai, MStein, Ashles Iles, Two Cherries.
¶ Small figure carving
- OCCT carver 1 3/4"
- Helvie Knives
- Flexcut 14
¶ Chip carving
see chip-carving.
¶ Sloyd (spoons, functional items) carving
Mora 120 (shorter) and 106 (longer) are good beginner knives. There's also 122 (straight edge) and 105 (guard).
¶ Other Tools (Adzes, Axes, Spoon knives, Sloyd knives...), especially for green woodworking
¶ Brands/Makers
- Pfeil ("swiss made") - catalogue; their carving gouges are considered top of the line, whereas their knives are a little less well regarded
- Stubai - catalogue
- Ashley Iles - catalogue (pdf)
- Auriou
- Dastra (brand taken over by Two Cherries)
- Two Cherries
- Hirsch
- Henry Taylor
- MStein
- Petrograd Tools
- Klötzli chip carving knives
The catalogs are great places to look for sweep numbers and profiles.
¶ Where to get
¶ Sweep table
Here's an interesting take on the Sweep system, apparently called the "Sheffield List":
| Sweep | height in percent of #9 | |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | 0% | |
| #2 | 1-4% ? | |
| #3 | 5% | |
| #4 | 10% | |
| #5 | 15% | |
| #6 | 25% | |
| #7 | 50% | |
| #8 | 75% | |
| #9 | 100% | Standard, basically a semi circle |
| #10 | 110-112% | |
| #11 | 125% |
(archived source: https://web.archive.org/web/20220404054701/https://www.altebeitel.de/index.php/bauformen/holzbildhauer)
Visualisierung:
Interactive tool to visualize and calculate sweeps using the width and percentage of a half circle (or an ellipse with a given aspect ratio):
Checking this concept against the published Pfeil (Swiss Made) gouge sweep tables from the catalog, it works fairly well for sweeps 1-9. Sweep 11 is different as it does not follow a circle, but an ellipse: it matches one with a ratio of 1:2 (3:7 might be more accurate) fairly well with the segment being around 40% (30% at 3:7) of that ellipse.
¶ Hans Karlsson sweep table
Another interesting approach, e.g. https://klensmide.se/produktfiler/sticktabell-hk-nedbockat-jarn.pdf
radius/width, e.g. 35/30 is the portion of a 35mm circle, that's 30mm wide. This results in the curve heavily depending on the width, which means sweeps are barely comparable; it's a very accurate specification, though.