Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998
sharpening your carving tools
john lucas
I had to refresh one of my carving gouges edge yesterday and thought I would pass on a tip I learned. To tell if it's really sharp cut cross grain in some soft wood. Make 3 or more cuts that connect with each other to form a peak. If the peak has any tearout then you need to spend more time sharpening. There are probably other good techniques but this one works for me. 
Re: sharpening your carving tools
Keith Tompkins
Nice John, Many turners don't realize how sharp a carving tool needs to be. Do you polish with a felt wheel and compound? There is a wood block on the market that comes with a gold colored abrasive stick that's great for refreshing an edge. The block has all kinds of cut-outs in it to fit gouges and v tools.
Re: sharpening your carving tools
John K Jordan
>wood block on the market that comes with a gold colored abrasive stick
I have one of those and it works well on my gouges. For my chip carving knives that have to be razor razor sharp I use ceramic stones and a pig leather strop on a board.
Re: sharpening your carving tools
Don Evans
I have used that tecnique for long time, you can also run the edge of your thumb in the cut and tell when it is sharp enough by how smooth the cut is.
To sharpen I use a hard felt wheel 6" from Lee Valley on a motor driven setup I built myself. I use the green compound on it but first treat the wheel with small amounts of mineral oil. I have a jar with a 1/2" wide paint brush in lid to apply oil with. My motor is variable speed (old treadmill unit) and that makes it great for applying oil and compound.
This unit will do in 5 seconds what 30 minutes of stoning will do.
Don
