Sharpening a V chisel on the inside?

[Stephen Musial]

I did my first ever letter carving:
291194

I'm sure I made a few mistakes but it seems cleaning up the curves was the hardest part. I was wondering if it was possible to sharpen a V chisel on the inside and use that to fair the curves.

Anyone ever tried sharpening a V chisel on the inside or is it just a dumb idea?

p.s. the face frame is flush - that's just hide glue squeeze out that I haven't cleaned up yet.

[Mark Yundt]

Nice work. Congratulations.

I've never sharpened a V tool on the inside. Just sharpening the outside is the equivalent of a flat chisel.
When I do lettering the V only comes into play for depth and wast removal . When all the carving is complete a light pass down the middle of the letters re establishes a clean line and makes it crisp.

and I never use a V tool for doing the radius or flaired sections of letters. I'll use something like a 3 to make those cuts.

[Paul Kasman]

I have been learning Chris Pye's approach and while he is a strong advocate of inside bevels, I believe the V tool is a case that even he does not use them. The theory is that an inside bevel allows you to use the tool upside down and still steer out of the cut. You are not likely to ever need to use a V tool upside down. So, only the outside bevel.

[Mark Yundt]

Yes. It's a theory. You can very easily use any chisel "upside down" without an inside bevel. They work just fine as I've been doing it for years.
If you stop and think about it the only time you'd be using a chisel upside down is on a convex surface. Therefore any perceived benefit of a micro bevel or inside bevel is a moot point. Besides , done on a chisel it will increase the bevel angle. Why would you want to do that?
It gives people something to write about and fuss over but for the time spent trying to achieve that bevel you could have just carved the piece.