How about these gouges, or a combination?
A #7 straight
A #7 bent
A 2" #3 straight
(a #11 straight maybe)
combined with a pullshave, do you think this combination of gouges would do the job? Any other ideas? I would love to be able to do this with as few tools as possible.
thanks again for indulging me here.
Paul
I wound up buying a 1 in. no. 7, and a 1 in. No. 9 both straight. I may buy a No.7 bent gouge as well. There is at least a straight no. 5 or no. 3 in my future as well.
combined with the pullshave, and myspokeshaves, i am hoping this will work well for carving seats.
I would be grateful for any further comments.
Paul
Paul,I would start with the number 7 straight as wide as you can get. I use an old pexto firmer gouge 1 1/2 inch. The curved gouge I use as standby is the lv gouge they sell for notching logs. My thinking is that you are roughing out and want to remove lots of wood. It therefore has to be a chisel you can use a mallet with
Bill
Hi Paul, sorry I didn't get to the computer yesterday; I think you're on the right track and should be able to do well with the chisels you've bought. You may find 1" to be a little narrow, but that just means more cuts to do a larger shape. You mentioned possibly getting a 2" #3; in the #3 or #5, I'd recommend that width so you have basically a paring gouge at a relatively flat curve - good for final shaping before smoothing. If the brand you're buying makes fishtail gouges in large sizes (Pfiel does), you may want to get the #3/ #5 with a fishtail blade; this helps when cutting inside cross-grain curves (like the butt ends of the chair seat scallops); instead of just cutting down across the grain, you can get a cleaner radiused cut by putting one corner of the gouge blade in the center of your cut and rotating the rest of the blade around it while shear- cutting about 1/4 of the radius (I hope this translates well). You CAN do the same thing with a straight gouge; it's just easier with the tapered fishtail blade.
The bent gouge for hogging is a good idea - especially if you think you might want to do bowls or boxes later - it helps especially when carving the transition between sidewall and bottom of a dished surface.
Karl
Drew Langsner at Country Workshops imports a whole range of chair making tools. Adze, Axes, scorps, drawknives, froe, large assortment of small up to .extra heavy duty gouges...They are not cheap tools but they are very well made by hand.
Yeah, i would get stuff from Drew, except that i dont have a credit card fro those kinds of costs. So i try to only buy stuff locally, where i can pay cash.
if it wasnt for this "rule" i would already own one of Drews drawknives, one of his adzes, and one of his scorps, oh and one of his axes as well. I would really like a scorp, but no one local sells one. So, for now, i will use gouges,i guess.
Last edited by paul cottingham; 07-31-2015 at 8:56 PM.
Paul
As an aside, anyone have an opinion on these little hewing hatchets sold by LV? I know it looks like a toy, but it does have a single bevel, so it may be good for hewing.
Paul