How to Sharpen a Curved Woodcarving Gouge by Mary May

Professional woodcarver, Mary May, teaches how to sharpen a curved gouge on a diamond stone.

[@davidbehr2327]

Thank you for your detailed instructions that leave nothing out

[@Danwrnr1]

Your method can only be known by a gouge sharper. It is an awesome pleasure for woman to love the trade it made my heart glad, Thank you

[@birdsadventuresinwoodandmusic]

I'm just starting to get into this. Watched Paul Sellers "make love" to one of his chisels sharpening it and just loved that man's artistry though his is somewhat different than yours, but an artist none the less. It encouraged me after seeing his result to try to "rescue" one of my old chisels. I had always thought you needed a hammer with a chisel since my work had mostly been a bit of amateur carpentry. I spent some time on the chisels as I had watched him do, and lo and behold, I was able to actually do some crude carving with it just by pushing it through the wood. Actually carved a small spoon one day with it while waiting for some glue to dry. True story. Then I found you and watched some of your videos. You my lady, are an artist in the first degree when it comes to carving. I bought my first set of really good gouges a few days ago. I am now deeply "in love" with my tools. They float through the wood almost effortlessly. Thus, I am watching this video to learn to keep them that way. What a joy. I can actually "feel" them working the wood. I'm carving white pine so I'm really learning about grain. Sorry to write a book, but I'm just so inspired now that I understand the difference between a pretty good chisel and a Very Good Chisel! I love your work!! Thank you!!!

[@sandralloyd3754]

AWESOME video. This is the BEST tutorial I have seen by far. Simple, yet precise and accurate, and easy to follow and implement. You are a masterful teacher.

[@KoparyaRUS]

Please! make more videoes, you are the best so far to explain the techniques in both carving and sharpening. Please make a tutorial series from the beginner to the more experienced wood carver. That would be great! greetings from Russia.

[@marymay155]

Happy carving everyone! I'll be putting more videos up soon! Thanks for watching!

[@carolmaynard9146]

[@cjg8703]

Wow, you have so much patience! And you are an outstanding instructor! :)

[@Spelterdon]

20,000 wood workers - 20,000 unique ways of sharpening. But every method involves much practice and patience.

[@robinmarwick1982]

A really helpful video Mary...love the "you can't have too many chisels"...thanks.

[@urmelausdemeis3495]

Vielen Dank für's Einstellen

[@robertbrunston5406]

Thank you Mary.

[@przybyla420]

Ok wrapping up my novel... Sandpaper around various bits of reshaped dowel substitutes for slipstones (and provides coarse slipstones). For a v-tool you really do need a stone, or do both sides separately and then use the fold of a bit of sandpaper to get the vertice (which should have a tiny radius that you must preserve). But my most important tip by far is to OIL YOUR INNER FLUTES. These, and on a carver’s chisel, the outer sides, are the important part of the tool to maintain. Your edge is only as good as the rougher side of it. Period. Your flutes must not become rusted and pitted, ideally they should be a precise, smooth uniform surface that is brightly polished near the tip. Oil the flutes immediately after drying (dry immediately after sharpening). Never leave your tools in a humid environment outside a case, never leave them in a humid environment for an extended period of time without a coating of shellac or paste wax (remove shellac with denatured alcohol). Always oil after every use until you know your workspace and hand oil isn’t prone to rusting them. Use mineral oil, forget about expensive oils. Don’t use WD40. Be extra careful about oiling if you have cleaned your tools by wiping with a damp cloth, or used any solvent on them. By making the metal very clean you make it very quick to rust. High Carbon steel rusts easily compared to anything most people are used to, incidentally. And should you ever touch vinegar or lemon juice to your tools, or another acid, you must neutralize the acid with warm baking soda water solution. Even oiled, they will rust. Don’t store your edges tools near acids, and don’t store acids in your workspace.

[@urmelausdemeis3495]

Vielen Dank für die hilfreichen, ausführlichen Informationen

[@wy1ble]

Great video! You answered a little t of questions on sharpening in general on top of the gouge. Thanks

[@ScrapwoodCity]

Very informative, thanks for sharing!

[@rdepontb]

Very helpful! Thanks Mary!

[@fourrpaws]

Wonderful video. Thank you so much!

[@peteralexanian1460]

Great tutorial, thank you!

[@athanasistsiarlis]

great video in every essence.

[@rotex]

By putting a micro bevel slightly rounded (5- 10 degrees) on the inside you can use your gouge upside down. with much better control. It prevent your gouge from digging in. It creates a small heel to control the depth of the cut by raising lowering the handle. You can use it to shape the top of a nose, branch, limb or round an edge anything you want rounded into convex cylindrical shape. This is how the masters do it. This make your gouge much more useful and gives you a better cut all around. You may want to try 3m lapping film to sharpen with. You can wrap it around a dowel to get your micro bevel. Placed on flat service, such as, glass, tile or marble to sharpen with. Much cheaper then water stones or diamond stone.

[@jdstar6352]

Cratex. I use a 5" medium Cratex(TM) wheel on a buffer. Cratex wheels are expensive (approx. $100) but they produce INSTANT mirror finish, in 10 - 15 seconds. It is Difficult (but possible) to overheat a tool while polishing with Cratex, but only if one is pretty clumsy. Cratex is used in the cutlery industry to polish stainless steel tableware to a mirror finish. And a polished tool back glides frictionlessly through the wood. Cratex beats diamond six ways from Sunday. Cratex also makes small, inexpensive rotary shaft points that can be mounted on a Dremel tool for sharpening the incannel edge.

[@diymanable]

hahah loving the tools . that says it all i love fixing up old chisels and working with them

[@przybyla420]

The double bevel allows you to work with the gouge upside down (flute against the wood) and be able to terminate a cut without hitting a stop cut (or air). Clear as mud? It lets you carve in and then scoop back out, when working upside down. Not well, but sort of, especially with a shallow gouge. Excellent tutorial, thank you!

[@carmelizedonions]

thank you so much for this very instructive lesson! worth watching while sharpening in synchrony. now, onto your v chisel sharpening vid...

[@TermiteUSA]

I love wood

[@Charr81]

Thank you for the video! I have had problems with hollowing out the center of the arc. Guess I've been spending too much time on the center..

[@TheWaxChainFanClub]

That's my kind of dancing!

[@eduardosacasa5007]

Just one question; what's the minimum grit you should use before moving on to the leather strop? I have a 1200 grit diamond stone, and I was wondering if I first had to use my arkansas (4000 grit) stone before stropping

[@urmelausdemeis3495]

Das würde mich auch sehr interessieren

[@richardc1409]

Hey Mary! Thanks for the video! Where did you get your diamond stones? I see there are many options but I get confused. I have a Hirsch #7 gouge.

[@urmelausdemeis3495]

Das würde mich auch interessieren

[@thomasarussellsr]

sometimes the "old ways" are truely the best ways of doing things. Since the invention of steal and other metal weapons and tools they have been sharpened on stones and honed on hyde/leather. Electric systems are way newer than the design of most tools. If it worked for genorations, it can work for anyone willing to make the tools the best they can be. stones and leather strops have my chisels, planes, and knives shaving sharp. Any of my cutting blades can shave hair, but most of them can shave end-grain oak and iron wood too. You just have to keep the tools sharp/honed to spend less cumulative time at the sharpening process (once their sharp to begin with). The angle of the bevel to the back is a personal preference that can be any degree/minute/second for the best outcome for what you're working on/with. There is no greater joy than the "perfect" blade for the job at hand. My wife does not understand the need for multiples of the same tool, but different angles work best for different woods, so once you find the best angle for you for a particular medium noone wants to change the angle when changing woods. for me, hard woods seam to cut better at an included angle of between 27 and 28 degrees, but for softer woods I find a 23 to 24 degree bevel with a 6 to 7 degree back angle (included angle between 29 to 31 degrees) gives me a cleaner cut. I usually stick with these angles accross my cutting tools and have pretty decent longevity on the edge by going to the strop frequently. I usually only have to go back to the stones (after initial sharpening) when a blade gets chipped or rolled. I have even planed bovine bone with my tools and gotten good curly shavings. Hope this helps anyone with "degree" of bevel questions, but like I said, there is no one perfect angle for every craft, craftsman, or medium (wood, antler, bone, micarta...etc). You just have to play with it each time you sharpen until you find what works best for you.

[@marymay155]

Thanks so much for that information. Very helpful!

[@urmelausdemeis3495]

Danke für die ausführliche Information

[@katerinanikolakopoulou5610]

wow! Really good videos, everything very well explained. I have one question, have you ever used the smaller chisels ( about half the overall length of the ones you use) if so what is your opinion about them because I am thinking on investing on a set instead of the standard size . I will be carving book covers about 3-5 mm thick. Thank you very much (new subscriber here).

[@marymay155]

Thanks! I like to hold gouges with both hands, and often these smaller gouges restrict that. It's more for safety and tool control. It really depends on the size of your hands, and how comfortable you are holding the tools. There can be a tendency to use the tool one-handed, which in my mind is more dangerous. Just be careful! But have fun!

[@katerinanikolakopoulou5610]

Thank you for your reply. I understood what you mean about control. Thanks.

[@geomiss8889]

Small detail work. ie. small figures.

[@przybyla420]

When the works is so small, delicate and/or irregular that it must be held in the hands or lap, palm gouges excel. I never use them with one hand - I always have a finger or two of the other hand bracing the tool midway up the shank. When doing such work the #1 rule is to always have your hands connected - “anchored” to each other, and firm tabletop, or your lap (board or apron and thick jeans are a must when you start doing this sort of thing, and don’t start doing it until you have some experience and hand strength built up).

[@bradleejones9959]

just starting. Thanks!

[@przybyla420]

Sandpaper on thick, very level, glass placed on a firm level surface, will substitute for coarse stones to get your started. 80 grit wet dry, not emery paper or some cheap crap, lubricated with water. You mustn’t push your sharp edge into the paper though; always go sideways or backwards across the paper. You don’t need every grit, either. 80 to 120 to 180 to 220, 320, 600, 1200, strop with some compound smeared on it. My advice is to get synthetic waterstones, and to avoid ceramic and Arkansas stones particularly. They both cut inefficiently and clog. Waterstones cut very fast, but need leveled very often (but it is quick to do). They last years and years. Diamonds don’t last as long, and can’t be flattened, but do stay flat for a very long time. Stones is a classic case of “many choices, none of them good.” I like waterstones because they cut fast, the slurry is more pleasant than the slight fingernail on chalkboard sensation with diamond, and they don’t rust. They will break if dropped, but the fragments make slipstones. If you do get waterstones, keep in mind they can’t be allowed to freeze, to sit in water for days on end, or be closed up in a box while wet because they mildew.

[@przybyla420]

If you really have aggressive regrinding to do, the old way is a coarse floor or large flat sandstone boulder. Wet it and use a pull stroke only. You can roughly flatten sandstone with another piece of sandstone.

[@przybyla420]

Coarse concrete. It needs to be gritty, but not so rough that it’s not flat enough.

[@simongilchrist3329]

Very helpful. Thank you, Mary. I had heard that most carving tools are shaped wrong at the edge (though I don't remember the source). The source said that the corners of the blade should be either leading the cut or following behind. Something to do with severing the grain for a smoother cut or some such. Would you agree or is this person nuts? Just starting out, so any help would be appreciated. BTW, it was your appearance on the Woodwright's Shop that triggered my interest. Seemed very Zen.

[@marymay155]

Hi Simon, I usually leave the edge straight across, or on very rare occasions, I round over the corners. The only reason I would round over the corners is when I am making cuts where the sharp corners would interfere (rounding over beads would be a good example of this - the corner would dig into the background before the center of the blade). I don't know where it would be useful for a curved gouge to have the outside corners sticking farther than the center of the gouge. If you find a gouge sharpened like this, it's probably a mistake - the gouge was not rotated enough to his the outside edge. I'm sure there are others out there who sharpen differently, but this has always worked for me. Ultimately, if the gouge cuts the wood the way you want, go for it!

[@simongilchrist3329]

Mary May That's helpful. Thanks very much.

[@hmarillejla7]

Hi thanks for this helpful video. One question: do you smear the strop with somethin?

[@marymay155]

Thanks Joe. You can put any kind of polishing compound that you would put on a stropping wheel. There is a lot out there. I actually used silicone carbide powder. That is what jewelers use to polish stones. Rub a little bit of oil on the smooth side of the leather, let it soak in, and sprinkle the silicone powder on the rough surface of the leather. The oil will cause it to stick to the leather.

[@arthurstacey2730]

HOW DO YOU SHARPEN ONE WITH AN INSIDE BEVEL

[@marymay155]

I am assuming you are talking about "in-cannel" gouges? Flat outside edge and large bevel on the inside curve? Very tricky. You will need an aggressive curved stone that fits the inside of the tool (DMT has a "wave" stone that is a curved 1200 grit diamond that really removes a lot of metal). Then move to finer and finer curved slip stones (usually Arkansas stones or ceramic stones at this point) to create a mirror finish on the inside bevel. Do this until you get a tiny wire edge folded to the back side of the tool. Run the outside of the gouge along the stone VERY flat so you do not create a bevel on this outside edge. Then repeat these steps, inside and outside, until the wire edge is gone. Not an easy process, and takes longer than standard sharpening.

[@przybyla420]

Or give it away, that’s like the 3011th gouge you will need.

[@asherlandesman3139]

New gouges came at 35 degrees and I started sharpening (320, 1000, 3000, 8000, 1000) to get 23-25 degrees. Long (been at it 6 hours already) before I get rid of the shiney line to a knife edge the wings have rounded. Now what, restone the edge and start over for 8 hours? I tried that after 3 hours and now, as I said, I'm at 6 hours and still no knife edge and the wings are round again! BTW, this is my first rodeo.

[@marymay155]

Hi Asher, Sorry to hear your difficulty. I wouldn't bother restoring the edge once it is rounded. You will lose too much of the tempered edge (the end of the chisel is usually only tempered 1/4 to 1/2 inch). Just enjoy the tool with "softened" corners. It makes me wonder what kind of chisels you started out with. 35 degrees is a quite large angle and I am wondering if the quality of the metal is not good? Most tools with high quality metal will cost $30 to $40 each and often come with the bevel already at 23 or 24 degrees. If you went for much cheaper gouges, that may be the issue. That was a LOT of metal you had to remove (makes sense that you spend so many hours on it) to change the angle that much. All I can say is keep going until you reach that edge. The reason the wings have rounded is that the rotation on the stone was too much. Make sure you do not curve the gouge more than the curved bevel surface. If you still can see a thickness of metal, go back to the roughest stone you have simply to remove the mass of metal. Don't move to the finer stones unless most of that metal is gone. Good luck!

[@asherlandesman3139]

Remeasured and it was 42 degrees. BTW, I just saw a clip where he says that he prefers 40 degrees! Guess it depends on the person. The set I bought was mid-priced and they are all around 42 degrees and only ground, not polished. Finally, took off most of the excess with a Dremel stone. The time I'm wasting, if it didn't cost as much for shipping as buying, I'd just order Pfiels and move on. Months now and I haven't carved anything. Arrrgggh.

[@przybyla420]

You need a bench grinder, old sandstone grinder, old hand crank grinder, benchtop belt sander, lapping wheel SOMETHING to regrind. It is loony to use a stone. Don’t attempt any of these devices without watching someone do it or getting advice, you are more likely than not to bugger up your tool badly.

[@dennisharold5030]

Go to woodprix if you'd like to build it yourself.

[@goognamgoognw6637]

This is not how you sharpen a curved gouge, this is how you maintain it, wrong advice that will get many people frustrated. The setup and movement she demonstrated is not going to sharpen any reasonably blunt gouge in under 20 hours. You DO need a system of quality sharpening stones and yes you need to spend a couple hundreds if you want to be able to put an edge on any blunt or rusted vintage gouge. What she does in this video is only maintaining an edge on an already near perfect gouge.

[@geomiss8889]

One does not allow tools to become blunt to the point they need excessive work. Learn to sharpen as you go.....

[@goognamgoognw6637]

​@@geomiss8889 I need no advice, i made my own sharp steel tools set from scratch, i know the difference between different type of steels too from hands on experience on them. Of course if you're a novice and only know how to maintain a sharp blade someone made for you, then you don't know little about sharpening.

[@przybyla420]

Some carvers repeat this line - you never need to use a coarse stone. It is BS. They are being imprecise: you never need to IF nothing ever goes wrong... you never get a chip, a dished out or wavy edge, an accidentally too steep of bevel. If you have carving tools you not only will need a coarse stone, but will also need a grinder unless you want to spend hours doing very monotonous labor. If you learn to use a grinder (and no it doesn’t soften the steel unless you are grossly negligent) it is a valuable skill in and of itself for the wood carver, who sooner or later will probably start making the odd tool, work holding device, or odd carpentry or handyman project for the house. A bench grinder is one of the first machines you should buy, hands down, in all cases (hand crank if you don’t have electricity). Ok, end of rant. Sorry about that.

[@goognamgoognw6637]

@@przybyla420 Yep, speaking from experience, you absolutely need at least 4 grits of stone starting from a coarse stone all the way to a least 6,000 if you work with carving tools and yes a grinding motorized tool may become useful at some point. The only way to develop a real feel making sharp steel tools is to make one from an extremely blunt one (buy harbor freight chinese wood carving tools, it's $15 and they come very poorly done, some of them won't even produce a wood shaving at all. That is perfect to learn your stones) and to start with a very coarse stone or grinder to learn how steel reacts. You will also learn what kind of steel quality you got, was it properly tempered of is it crazy hard and chipping or super soft like butter (won't hold an edge long) and only then move to higher grits. If you just get high grit honing stones, you will learn nothing from them since they can only do extremely small incremental work without changing the geometry of the bevel and you will get frustrated. It's like a blind man trying to read a book. First learn to read large characters. My most frustrating attempt was to try to sharpen a "singing razor" that had a very thin blade on an extremely hard steel that the manufacturer had sharpened on a rotating machine so that they also warped the blade while sharpening it. It was impossible to sharpen with stones, not only that but it was a dangerous blade to use out of the box. Manufacturer : THier Issards. Will never buy any of their blade again (was bought new and a special collection iterm) Also i almost forget you need a 10X loupe to see what is happening with the bevel as you work on it.