Argus
Established Member
Are there any carvers here?
Other than laboriously creating the circle of each gouge by rotating it on a piece of scrap, how do you work out the diameter of a circle that results from a sweep-arc on the Sheffield List?
Is there a reliable table of actual diameters somewhere?
I’ll explain.
I’m a little old-school in that I was brought up on British gouges; where the sweeps were marked, it corresponded to the Sheffield list. When I have acquired older, unmarked gouges I quickly establish the ‘Sheffied’ sweep. It’s the same with the newer continental Pfiel or Kirschen gouges that have a different progression of sizes and sweeps – they get marked with the nearest ‘Sheffield’ profile.
Lately, I’ve been following some of the Mannerist carvers who carve in the Jacobean style, notably Peter Follansbee who specialises in late 17th C English and New England furniture.
He’s producing some accurate 17th C decorative panels much of which centres on patterns made of vertical stab cuts- here’s an example:
In the main, much of the patterns are laid out with a Vee tool, then the details worked from vertical stab cuts that utilise the entire arc of the gouge to make the elements. The original workers would have worked with what they had….. probably a few basic shapes.
But establishing a selection of working tools for this purpose – using the sweep’s profile instead of its ability to remove material - needs a knowledge of the full diameter of the sweeps on the Sheffield list which is never published.
Hence my question.
Other than laboriously creating the circle of each gouge by rotating it on a piece of scrap, how do you work out the diameter of a circle that results from a sweep-arc on the Sheffield List?
Is there a reliable table of actual diameters somewhere?
I’ll explain.
I’m a little old-school in that I was brought up on British gouges; where the sweeps were marked, it corresponded to the Sheffield list. When I have acquired older, unmarked gouges I quickly establish the ‘Sheffied’ sweep. It’s the same with the newer continental Pfiel or Kirschen gouges that have a different progression of sizes and sweeps – they get marked with the nearest ‘Sheffield’ profile.
Lately, I’ve been following some of the Mannerist carvers who carve in the Jacobean style, notably Peter Follansbee who specialises in late 17th C English and New England furniture.
He’s producing some accurate 17th C decorative panels much of which centres on patterns made of vertical stab cuts- here’s an example:
In the main, much of the patterns are laid out with a Vee tool, then the details worked from vertical stab cuts that utilise the entire arc of the gouge to make the elements. The original workers would have worked with what they had….. probably a few basic shapes.
But establishing a selection of working tools for this purpose – using the sweep’s profile instead of its ability to remove material - needs a knowledge of the full diameter of the sweeps on the Sheffield list which is never published.
Hence my question.
