A while ago, I read Dave Fisher’s post on his Souped-up Sharpening Shelf and thought that sounded like a great idea to get some consistency in my gouge-sharpening. It’s not that all of my carving gouges are dull, but I’ve been hand-sharpening them, and I don’t always get the angle the same, so over time, that leads to a dubbed edge, which may be beneficial or not (do some searching and reading if you want a lot of different opinions). In any case, a badly dubbed edge is not good, and consistency will get me to a happier place.
I also got a Tormek SVS-38 Short Tool Jig to use with it, and since that wants a ⅜” rod to ride on, I bought a stainless rod, as well.
With all the pieces put together (the pieces of wood at the ends were quickly half-lapped onto the main board, and the metal rod is friction-fit into holes in those pieces), here’s how the jig looks in use.
The one other modification I needed was to put a couple strips on the bottom of the box holding one of my sharpening stones. These allow it to rise above the metal edge on my bench (which is definitely not traditional on a woodworking bench, but I find it useful) and get the gouge at the proper angle with minimal fuss.
Putting these together gets the gouge on the stone as shown below. The angle is a bit steeper than the gouge was originally sharpened at, and I’ll probably lower it in the future, but sharpening at a steeper angle like this allowed me to see the results quickly. I put a line on the side of the board so I can recreate this if needed, and I expect I’ll add more lines over time. And of course, as the gouges get shorter with repeated sharpening, I’ll need to adjust the angle by putting the board lower in the vise, which will mean even more lines on the board. But the lines on the front of the board will help me keep the board level.
After a dozen passes of the gouge back and forth, rolling it to try to sharpen the entire length of the edge, I got this:
And this:
As you can see in the second photo, I didn’t quite get the gouge rolled far enough to sharpen all the way to the edge of the bevel, but very quickly I got a mirror surface on the gouge. This was with a hard Arkansas oil stone, which is quite a bit finer than the grit the gouge was originally ground with at the factory, as you can see in the photos.
Overall, I’m pleased with this setup. It took me a couple hours to knock this jig together, plus $40 in materials, and I now have a jig which will help me sharpen my gouges in a more repeatable manner. The Tormek jig isn’t ideal for a large veiner like this gouge, as it’s difficult to roll the tool over far enough, but for 90% of my gouges, this should do a good job and help me keep them sharp, rather than waiting until they’re dull before I decide I have to sharpen.
Nope. Shorter gouges will hit in a different spot, and my dad used Arkansas stones for decades without ever flattening them, and I still can’t detect any dishing on them.
Nice setup Dave 👍 Do you get flexing in the shaft as you travel? Seems to be an ideal and simple way to get the profile exact. The vise mount may be "fiddly" but lets you get any angle within its range, I can see having some spacers in the stone mount to allow swapping stone grits and keeping the angle the same, or adjust for a micro bevel.
Nice idea - would a strip at the front save the effort of all the pencil lines and give a consistent angle? Then it's just lower in the vice until the gouge touches the stone.
Bit of high tech prototyping as I'm not sure I explained that very well.
The stones each have their own box (Dan’s Whetstones sells them that way if you don’t have the patience to make your own) so if I need adjustments per stone, I’ll just change things on the appropriate box.
I thought about a stop on the front, but then put in two different gouges and needed two different heights in the vise because the gouges are slightly different lengths. That will only get more pronounced with time, I expect. So lines seem best.
If you go to Dave Fisher’s original page, one of his readers made a jig for putting the gouge in the tormek short tool jig, which seems like it might be useful, but I’m going to use it for a few months putting the gouge as far into the jig as possible and see.
As for flex, I’m not putting any force into the rod, and a 3/8 stainless rod doesn’t flex much anyhow. But all of the force should be side to side, not pressing on the stone or rod. 3/8 is more than enough, but if you’re a gorilla, use 1/2 inch stainless rod.
Yeah, Splint, it would be easy to do so, but the Tormek jig might bump into a support if I had one. But putting the gouge directly on the stainless rod would also work, and that’s how Dave Fisher does it. I’m happy with the Tormek jig, though, and will probably keep using it until I lose it.
Thanks, Tom! Of course my finest Arkansas stone (either a surgical black or a translucent - I haven’t decided which is actually the finer of the two) is coarser than stropping with green polishing compound, so that’ll be an opportunity for me to be inconsistent, but I may make a board for stropping gouges with this jig, too.
