sharpening irish grind

[jeff oldham]

anyone know about the don Geiger system that goes on your wolervine to give you the irish grind sharpening angle,,or can anyone tell me a good way to get the irish grind without the system,,I have a few bowl gouges that I would like to have this grind on,,,can anyone give me some comments,,,thank you

[Thom Sturgill]

As I understand it, Geiger's system simply makes the Wolverine replicate the settings inherent in Ellsworth's original setup. David had the pocket higher and a measured distance from the wheel. Geiger's solution is nice but not needed, IMHO. He could not explain how the setup changed the geometry of the grind, but rather just said it raises the point of the gouge higher up on the wheel.

Whether you call it an Irish Grind, an Ellsworth Grind (David Ellsworth kind of introduced it in America), a fingernail grind, a long grind, a side grind, or a swept-back grind they are all pretty much the same and can be ground either with a jig or on a platform. There are numerous You-Tube videos on doing the grind. For example, Bob Hamilton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAocVE7X_3U) has a good video on converting a standard grind to a fingernail grind. Capt Eddie has another. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9RDnJHz9g) and another (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJq_cRhpXRc)

[Reed Gray]

I only have one swept back grind gouge now. The only difference I could see in the variations is that some are pretty much straight from top of gouge to tip, and some have a slight arc. I do mine on a platform. I have ground most of them into 45/45 (sweep/bevel) profiles. The long wing can be used to put extra metal into the wood for roughing, and for shear scrape type cuts on the outside of a bowl. I use scrapers for all of my heavy roughing, and also for my shear scrapes. I am different that way...

robo hippy