Help Selecting Gouge

[Dennis McDonaugh]

I'm having a devil of a time finding a gouge which will give me the radius I need for letter carving.

I have been buying Henry Taylor chisels from Woodcraft because they are priced right and available locally. They sharpen well and seem to hold an edge a long time. The problem is Woodcraft only stocks odd number gouges. The nr. 5 gouge has too flat a radius for carving 2" letters and the nr. 7 is too tight. Sooooo I ordered a nr. 6 gouge from Ashley Isles and it's almost as tight as the number 7 Henry Taylor and doesn't work well for carving the letter O, C, Q etc.

This leads me to several questions. Shouldn't all London pattern gouges follow the same numbering system regardless of manufacturer? Also, I have three Henry Taylor nr 5 Gouges and the radius of the curve seems to flatten out as the chisels get wider. Does this seem right? And finally, does anyone know any brand of gouge which will provide approximately 1 7/8 radius circle? I'm thinking of trying an Ashley Isles nr. 5 to see if it is closer to what I need.

Thanks,

[Joel Moskowitz]

THe short answer is no.
In theory everyone making london pattern gouges should have the same sweep but in practice wear and tear on the dies used to form the gouge, and of course there is no actual original standard so you do get variations between maker anyway.

THe reason we stock all the sweeps is that there is just too much of a jump between sweeps. the radious of a specfic sweep might change a little between widths but it shoudn't. There is of course that old problem of wear and tear too.

In the case of Ashley Iles you can download our catalog and in the carving section is an actual size sweep chart of all the sweeps in all the sizes up to 1". I do occasioanlly test the gouges against the chart and it works usually spot on.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Joe, thanks for your reply. I printed the chart as you suggested and made a copy on clear acetate so I could overlap the wide chisels on the narrow ones. It made things a lot clearer. Now I just need to figure out which sweep and width I need. Thanks again.