Vintage In-n-Out cannel Gouge! (and need help identifying one of the gouges)

[allen long]

A few months ago I found a couple of large gouges for $15 total. They were pretty rough
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But they cleaned up very nicely!

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Unfortunately, Someone decided to make one of these (the top one an in-n-out cannel! Or it is the biggest secondary inside secondary bevel I have ever seen.

Is there any reason that this would be useful (i.e., strong bevel on both sides of the gouge.)

One is a Swann. I cannot quite make out what brand the other one is. Maybe a Witheby?

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[Jim Koepke]

Such a deal, the partial name does look to be Witherby.

I wanted to change one of my in cannel gouges to an out cannel. At the time it seemed easy just to sharpen the bevel a bit at a time on the outside instead of taking time to grind it down.

It is possible for someone to have had a special use for it. A lot of chisels and gouges have come my way with unusual sharpening. Some may be due to an inept user. Some have proven to be very useful they way they are. One in particular was a 1" chisel with a full radius bevel. If one wants to cut finger pulls in the sliding top of a box, it is very handy to have.

jtk

[Sergey Petrov]

May I ask what your cleanup procedure was? The gouges look beautiful!

[Joe Tilson]

Plus one on Sergey's request.

[Allen Jordan]

Huh, never seen that. You could carefully grind the tip off entirely and make it either an in or an out at your discression (assuming the whole gouge is made of good tool steel and it isn't just laminated on one side or the other).

[allen long]

I have a couple of buffing wheels on a slow speed (1700 rpm) motor. I used a medium grit on one wheel to start and followed it up with white compound (very fine grit) to finish polishing it up.

I will grind the tip off and re-cannel the side that has the original factory grind. Either way, I figure at $7.50 a piece, if I only wind up with one good gouge I am way ahead at $15 for one large beautiful gouge. I didn't give you the size, but this a big! somewhere on the order of a 1-1/4" diameter scoop (for lack of the correct term)

Many Kind Regards . . . Allen


May I ask what your cleanup procedure was? The gouges look beautiful!

[Dave Anderson NH]

Allen they could possibly have been used for carving. In carving (particularly in sculpture sized things) it is often advantageous to have a back bevel which allows you to gradually exit the cut with a slope similar to the one you made going in. Think hollowing a bowl or a wooden spoon as an example. There are all kinds of specialized uses in obscure historic trades where standard tools were specially modified because there wasn't enough volume for a factory to produce a production run. Of course, all this is conjecture. The bevels could have been done by a hack.

[Sergey Petrov]

Thanks Allen, I am waiting on some wheels too.

[allen long]

I am pretty sure it was done by a hack since the back bevel is about the same dimension as the primary bevel is! For carving (based only on what I have read) the back bevel should only be a few degrees. This was about 30 - 40 degrees and goes about 1/4 inch from the front edge!

Many Kind Regards . . . Allen


Allen they could possibly have been used for carving. In carving (particularly in sculpture sized things) it is often advantageous to have a back bevel which allows you to gradually exit the cut with a slope similar to the one you made going in. Think hollowing a bowl or a wooden spoon as an example. There are all kinds of specialized uses in obscure historic trades where standard tools were specially modified because there wasn't enough volume for a factory to produce a production run. Of course, all this is conjecture. The bevels could have been done by a hack.

[Jim Koepke]

I didn't give you the size, but this a big! somewhere on the order of a 1-1/4" diameter scoop (for lack of the correct term)

A few of mine are large like that, the biggest is a shallow 2" sweep. Much bigger and the handle is attached at 90º and they call it an adz.

jtk

[Frank Drew]

The inner bevel is wrong but just from the shapes and the rather blunt outer bevels they look like roughing out gouges for spindle turning, however, I can't tell how thick they are just from the photos (they'd have to be fairly thick for turning.) I would expect a carving gouge to have a longer bevel.

[bridger berdel]

every gouge I have ever looked at with an eye to in/out bevel assessment has had the intended back (non bevel) side ground to a higher accuracy than the other side. it's not like you couldn't do a bit of grind clean up and successfully reverse the bevel, but unless you have a very specific need and difficulty sourcing the appropriate tool it seems like wasted effort. in the case of this example, if it looks like both sides are accurately enough ground I guess the choices are:

work with it as is. functionally it will be a high angle out bevel gouge with a really narrow bevel, not something that would be particularly useful to me, but YMMV.

use it as is, but incrementally return it to a single bevel (your choice) through sharpening.

grind it back and set a new bevel (your choice). this would be my choice. as I currently have more out bevel gouges than in bevel gouges, all else being equal I'd probably grind it in bevel. what sizes of each were in my gouge drawer at the time would be a strong influence, as would be my assessment of the original maker's intended grind.