Carving v. joiners gouges

[OldWood]

I'm of the round world with a little bit of flat stuff thrown in. Carving I know nothing of.

What started this query off was a box of odd tools coming from a neighbour of a neighbour - the guy it seems had been in the shipyards which might explain some of the more obscure tools that were there. But amongst all the question mark bits there were a few that I recognised as carving tools. Spin forward to this week and I suddenly learnt that the club were having a carving lecture - I probably wouldn't have bothered but obviously this was a 'meant to be' moment. The lecturer was good and all those there enjoyed it thoroughly, so I've been back to the box of bits to fish out the appropriate tools and add some curved gouges I already had.

A categorical statement was made at the lecture that carving gouges are all ground to an external bevel, whereas joiners ones are an internal bevel.

Is this sacrosanct?

I had some odd gouges previously, some inside and some outside bevel I now see, and now have 13 in total (all carbon steel) - 7 'carving' shape and 6 'joiners' shape - going from quite shallow and 28mm across to a 3mm joiner's shape.

If I'm going to have a go at carving, I see no difficulty in doing a conversion process as necessary to create a range of sizes - but what sizes? And does that depend on what I type of carving I might do, which might be relief carving rather than free standing?

Thanks for any comments.
Rob

 

[bugbear]

A categorical statement was made at the lecture that carving gouges are all ground to an external bevel, whereas joiners ones are an internal bevel.

Is this sacrosanct?

Wow. Where to begin?

General woodwork typically uses strong gouges, ground on the outside - this is often called a "firmer gouge".

However, there is also a thing called a "scribing gouge";

post634136.html?hilit=scribing%20gouge#p634136

Less frequent, but still common enough.

Carvers most commonly use gouges sharpened on the outside, but with "some" bevel on the inside - this is because they use a very low bevel on the outside (for reasons of access), and the inner bevel steepens the resulting edge, making it stronger.

But that's only "most commonly":

Carvers, especially when doing tricky or undercut work use any damn thing that'll do the job - that's why Gibbons had hundreds of chisels.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I can't add much to what BugBear has already said, except that joiners', cabinetmakers' and patternmakers' gouges are always straight in the blade and usually quite thick, but carving gouges are usually thinner in the blade, and may have one of a variety of curves along their length - sow-back, back-bent, spoon and so on. The bevels of gouges are sometimes called 'cannels' (no idea why); firmer gouges are always out-cannel, paring (scribing) gouges are in-cannel.

Engineering pattermakers favoured a type of gouge with a long blade, like a paring chisel, and an in-cannel. They sometimes also have a cranked neck, so that the handle was clear of the surface of the work when in use on large jobs. They were made in several different 'sweeps' from quite shallow to almost semi-circular, but not in as many sweeps as carving gouges. Another use for scribing gouges is in joinery, when two pieces of moulding have to be joined at an angle, but a mitre joint is not convenient. In that case, the end of one piece is 'scribed' to fit the profile of the other.

Sharpening in-cannel gouges can be a bit of a pain. Slipstones do the honing, but when regrinding is needed, either a lot of work with a coarse slip, or a profiled grinding wheel is needed. Diamond files might be a modern answer.