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14 minutes ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Be careful with O1, thin sections will air harden.

Thanks for the heads up. I forged a couple carving knives from O1 recently (a spoon knife and a detail carver) but haven't had time to do the heat treat yet. 

9 minutes ago, bobasaurus said:

I really wish I had a good way of forging shoulders that the handles could sit on, instead of the tang going right into the gouge body.  I might try to make some dies that would work with this, or some kind of guillotine / spring fuller tool.  

If you started with round stock shoulders would be easy. But then you would need to flatten it out for the blade. I'm too inexperienced to have an idea about how to produce shoulders in flat stock (I'm sure you could make it round but I've never tried going flat to round). I will be watching to see what you come up with.

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You could use a nail header type tool to forge shoulders.  They look nice.  IME they are not worth the effort though.  I have made simple hidden tang chisels that work just fine even for pretty heavy hammering (which is an unusual way to work with gouges or chisels... excepting maybe mortise chisels).  

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On 2/9/2017 at 7:07 PM, SLAG said:

Bob,

Check out Alexander Weygers book The Complete Modern Blacksmith.

It has great instructions on making that kind of tool. 

He was a professional wood sculptor and made his own tools, especially gouges.

What sweep are those gouges? (London Pattern number).

SLAG.

I picked up that book, it's a good read.  Thanks for the recommendation.  It's interesting how he prefers stock removal to forging in the early chapters.  

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Bobasurus,,

Look what I just found. A full set of gouge sweeps. That will save you form searching.

The sweep numbers are English profiles. European notation are different. (for example in the Swiss gouge maker catalogue by"Pfeil"

Bunkies fasten your seatbelts, and hold onto your hats!

The wonderful benefactor of this chart is a company whose logo should remind you of fruit / & a pair of them.

SLAG.

 

Bad links removed

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Remember that the Complete Modern Blacksmith is a combination of *3* of his books of which only 1, The Modern Blacksmith was definitely smithing oriented (The Making of Tools, The Modern Blacksmith and The Recycling, Use and Repair of Tools)   You can buy a used copy of just the Modern Blacksmith if you like... 

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Pilgrims,

Allow me to add a few notes to accompany the sweep chart above.

As denoted the measurements are in millimeters.

The sweeps in the chart are not exact. For example, the 40 mm sweep 4 is 52 mm, and the 40 mm of sweep 3 measures 56 mm  on the chart.

In other words they are approximate. But the sweep charts will give the sweep number.

Just place the gouge's sharp end down on the chart and determine which sweep corresponds closest with the curvature of the "new" gouge blade.

I hope that these additional notes clarify the chart and the method of determining the sweep-number of the gouge.

Regards,

SLAG.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Bobasaurus,

Weyger's three-book set includes a section on making an upsetting tool for the anvil that can be used to forge a bolster.  As memory serves, he also recommended using something like a monkey tool to push a slightly undersized round fender washer onto the square tool shank to achieve a press-fit bolster. 

 

 

 

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On 3/17/2017 at 11:47 AM, rockstar.esq said:

Weyger's three-book set includes a section on making an upsetting tool for the anvil that can be used to forge a bolster.  

That's interesting, I'll have to finish reading the set.  The washer idea is clever, I just made an integral bolster knife where this trick would have been useful.  

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I would use the very small radius contact wheel on my bader to do the inside bevel and use the slack belt to smooth the back of the chisels.

By hand: rough in with a curved or round file and then wrap SiC paper around various dowels to get to close, then heat treat and more SiC on a dowel until you are ready for a gouge hone to finish the edge.

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1 hour ago, Benton Frisse said:

Awesome chisels! How did you grind that bevel like that? I recently tried my hand at a bowl adze and grinding that bevel inside of the curve was so tough... luckily it fit my contact wheel on my old 1x30 just perfect. 

I don't have a lot of grinding equipment, so I mostly used a 3/4" dia sanding drum on my flex shaft grinder.  I honed it with a dowel in my wood lathe coated in green chromium oxide compound.  

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  • 2 years later...
On 2/10/2017 at 7:35 AM, JHCC said:

 Here's an easier method, if your gouges have a constant radius: put each one edge-down on a piece of soft wood, and swivel to scribe a circle. Measure. 

Or you could measure them with a set of radius gauges.

Very simple cheap tool set that I rely upon heavily in tool and die work.

Makes life easy.

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Bob S.,

Too bad about the infected chart links.

I suggest that you look up some of the chisel makers in order to find a useful sweep chart.

A few manufacturers are e.g. Pfeil, Henry Taylor, Three Cherries  etc. etc. 

There are sweep charts depicted in the catalogues of wood tool sellers such as Woodcraft, Garret-Wade, etc.

I just checked the former cited seller, which has the chart you are looking for.*

Hope that helps,

SLAG.

*I would have put up a net address but my control-c, control-v function does not work on this site. It works on all the other sites I frequent.

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  • 3 years later...

I ve been asked by a friend  to make a 4" or 5" wood gouge.  He owns a landscape  company and they are making a children's playground  for nearby town they have some large 4 or 5ft in diameter logs ,and they are hollowing out the centers for tunnels. He wants a large gouge  on a shovel handle  to do some finishing  after the  chainsaws. Not sure what type of steel  to use. I have some large saw blades I was thinking of cutting out 3 pattern pieces and forge weld them together  then make the gouge  from  that.or I have hundreds of old farrier rasp i could grind down  and use them  ,or icould look for an old leaf spring,but he kinda needs it quick and it's  a long weekend  so can.t really hit the scrap yard  till next week.  Was going to make it my project  this weekend. Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

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