Carving Gouge Sharpening System

The MDF wheels are 1½" thick (two ¾" pieces laminated together), 8" diameter. At the time that I made this, I didn't have a lathe. So the wheels were gotten as close as possible by hand using shaves, rasps, files, etc., and then trued in situ. The motor is a flea market special ($5) 1750 RPM. It's set up so the wheels turn away from me. Since taking the picture, I've switched sides for the chuck and the buffing wheel—this way the chuck self tightens as I use it.

The pulleys, pillow block bearings and mounting flanges for the wheels all came from Cabe Woodcarving, whose business was taken over by Texas Woodcarvers Supply. I selected the pulleys to give me a shaft rotation speed of between 300–400 RPM. The reason I chose that is that I like to use the V profile power strop in the chuck to strop the inside of Vs, and it's only rated up to 400 RPM.

What's shown in the chuck right now is a round profile felt buffing wheel that serves the same purpose for round profile gouges—I rarely use this—the cloth buffing wheel does a great job on the insides of most gouges. The leather on the strop wheel is from an old belt. The sandpaper is available from Klingspor. I'm considering building another one for my garage shop (this one's in the basement). The new one will only have the strop wheel, the cloth buffing wheel. and a chuck for the V power strop. These are the things I use the most.