I intended to do this all in one entry but I ran into a bit of a dilemma.  The tool I'm working with is an Ashley Iles 60 degree, 1/2" inch tool with a long-bent shaft.  One of my most often use carving tools is another 60 degree AI V tool that's 3/8".  So I probably don't really need this one but it was part of a lot on Ebay that I bought so I figured having another one with a sweep that's a little bigger can't hurt.  In general, I seek Ashley Iles tools out because I really like the quality of the steel and the forging and I prefer their handles to others.

But this one is a little disappointing once I started looking at it.  I ground the end flat and dyed it up and that's when I noticed the first signs of a possible issue.  In my previous entry I said:

But when I looked at the end of this tool:

I noted that the left leg in the photo is a good deal thicker than the right leg and the right leg tapers down towards the top.  Hmmm.  In theory, this will mean that the tool will want to pull to the right when carving.  But I decided to go ahead and start working it in and see what happens.

In the previous entry, I reviewed the geometry of the tool and the three main bevels, the two side legs and the keel.  I like to start by setting the keel bevel first.  So I clamped the tool up in my Tormek jig so that it was a little shallower than the angle I prefer to carve at.  When I did the gouge in an earlier entry, I set it at the finished angle I wanted so why shallower here?  Because I have a good deal more steel to remove from the keel on this tool than on a gouge.  As I remove steel, the bevel will drop the end of the tool down and I'll end up with a higher grip angle than I started with.  I don't measure these angles, I just do it by feel.  Once I get the bevel roughed in, I'll check it and make any adjustment necessary.

I start with 80 grit on the Work Sharp and grind a flat bevel on the bottom until I'm about 1/32" or so from the apex of the internal bend radius on the tool.

It is important here to make sure you keep the keel bevel flat and symmetric here.  If you skew to one side or the other, you'll end up with a tool that pulls to one side or with a non-flat bevel on the keel which makes it harder to maintain your tool position when carving.  One of the things I really like about the Work Sharp is that it does form a flat bevel.

FWIW, you could sharpen this tool using a top clamping honing jig like the Veritas:

You just have to reset the tool for each bevel but they are all 3 flat, straight bevels.  And with a guide like this you take the human error out of the equation.  I just prefer the Tormek jig because I can set the tool once and do the whole tool without removing it.  But I also have to be very careful to hold it right since it rotates on the bar and I could easily end up with rounded or multifaceted bevels if I'm not conscientious of how I'm holding it.

Once I have the keel bevel roughed in, I am ready to move to the chisel bevels on the two legs.  I checked to make sure the angle my tool is at now is comfortable for use and then rotate it so one of the legs sets flat on the bar.  I will keep the chisel bevels at the same setting as the keel in my jig BUT that means they may be at a different angle.  Depending on where the keel is in relation to the axis of the handle compared to the legs, the bevel angle may differ.  But the variance will be minor and when carving, I'm always holding this tool with the keel down so it really doesn't make any practical difference.

So I roughed in the two side bevels so there is about 1/32" of the flat face on the end left:

Yowza!  In the first pic you can see that the leg on the left is of pretty constant thickness but the leg on the right tapers way down at the top.  And in the second pic, you can see that the bevel on the thicker leg sweeps back further at the keel and at the top side it's shorter than the bottom but not by a lot.  However on the thinner leg on the left, the bevel is at an angle and doesn't go back very far at all at the top of the leg.

So I stopped my work at that point and I'll stop this blog here.  I haven't decided yet how to fix this tool.  The best option is probably to just grind the thicker leg down so it matches the thinner one.  The only other option is to fudge the bevel angle on the thick one but I'm afraid it won't cut satisfactorily if I do that.  This was a used tool and could have been a "seconds" or a previous owner may have ground one leg down for some unknown reason.  This is far below the usual quality of forging for Ashley Iles in my experience.  In other cases, I may just toss it since I didn't pay a lot for it and it's not a tool I really need but since I'm doing this blog series anyway, I guess it's a good opportunity to do a little extra work.

Until the next one.