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David Keller NC
12-03-2008, 11:15 AM
Hi All - I'm looking for some tool recommendations here. I'm a tradtional carver with traditional, european-type tools (i.e., carving gouges instead of knives), mainly focused on furniture carving jobs. That means that most of my carving tools are on the smallish side - generally no larger than 20mm.

However, I've become interested in bowl carving after reading Roy Underhill's short chapter on dough bowls in one of the Woodwright's Shop books, and except for a smallish curved hand adze and a shingling axe, I don't have the right tools for the job.

So my question is - what do creeker woodcarver's recommend for a highly-swept adze for roughing out the inside of a bowl blank? What would be your choice for a highly swept and highly curved bowl gouge?

In particular, I've looked at Pfiel's offerings for a swept and curved adze - these seem to be limited to the #9 (european) sweep, and come either with a short, hatchet-type handle or a longer, two-handed (but still not full length) version. Ironically, the smaller version is more expensive than the larger one.

I've also looked at Country Workshop's tools. They're hand-forged and quite expensive, but I'm not one to skimp on tools when I can pay a little more and get a more usable/higher quality tool. The Karlsson bent gouges look ideal, but that's just a judgement from a picture - does anyone on the forum have any of these tools, and if so, what do they think of them?

Kevin Adams
12-03-2008, 7:58 PM
David--

The tools that Drew sells are excellent and he stands behind them 100%. I personally own and use the Karlsson gouges listed as HK-06, 07, and 08 and find them to work very well. If you wanted to just start with two, I would suggest 06 and 07. Note that these are for hand pressure only, not mallet work, so you will need either an adze or large gouge. I use a lightweight elbow adze (made in the NW Coast native style), but have heard good things about the Karlsson adzes Drew sells. They are quite expensive, however, so you might think about one of his large gouges like HK-28. Another option are the Gransfors Bruks adzes (Highland Hardware sells them), but they are also expensive and I understand sometimes in short supply.

If you haven't seen it yet, Drew has a tutorial of sorts on his site on carving bowls and he alse sells an excellent video by Bengt Lidström, which would be a great way to get started. If you really are interested, just give Drew a call and you'll find him to be very helpful and not pushy on buying his tools. He's one of the few instructors I know who specifically tells people not to buy a bunch of tools before they come to his class so they don't wind up with unwanted tools. Most instructors give you a list to buy things, whereas Drew lets you try all different tools to see what you do and don't like.

I hope this is helpful, but if you have any further questions, please let me know.

Kevin

Kevin Adams
12-03-2008, 8:04 PM
And here's another site to give you some inspiration:

http://www.davidffisher.com/index.html

I have corresponded with David and he's a great guy if you want to ask him some questions or just check out his beautifully carved bowls. BTW, he uses the same Karlsson gouges (06 and 07) that I mentioned above.

Kevin

David Keller NC
12-04-2008, 9:39 AM
"If you really are interested, just give Drew a call and you'll find him to be very helpful and not pushy on buying his tools."

Yeah, I purchased his book "Chairmaker's Workshop" and was seriously impressed - it's clear the guy knows his stuff. Your info was good - I wasn't really aware that some of the bowl gouges were not recommended for mallet work (though I'll admit I use mallets all the time with tools not recommended for them - I just use a urethane head mallet instead of a hard wooden one).

I think I may well start with a couple of bowl gouges and use the Underhill technique of splitting out the waste with the shingling axe. I've little doubt the bowl adze would be more efficient, but efficiency can wait until after the first couple of bowls...

Randy Schaffer
12-11-2008, 5:44 PM
I have a little bit different approach. I have only just started working green wood bowls and I use a mixture of tools. First a Granfors carving ax to rough out the shape, followed by a drawknife to smooth some of the ax work.

Hollowing by a NW Coast style adz (adz iron by North Bay forge, my own handle) and open hook knife.

Here is the ax

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2174/fspoontoknife26306et1.jpg

Here is the adz


http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/5016/adzfini9220ig7.jpg


http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/895/adzfront9215hy0.jpg


And here my still unfinished bowl using the open hook from Del Stubbs

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4301/birchbowl6706gx5.jpg

Randy Schaffer
12-11-2008, 6:09 PM
Jogge Sundqvist did a Dough Bowl video quite some time ago. It is out of "print" but my library has a copy and if you can find it, it is a great resource. He follows the traditional Swedish method of ax, adz, gouge and knife.

His Father's (Willie) also out of print book is another super resource. Again check your local library as it goes for major money as a used book.

Swedish Carving Techniques by Willie Sundqvist

Another real gem...also out of print is

Carving and Whittling: The Swedish Style by Gert Ljungberg adn Inger A:son-Ljungberg

David Keller NC
12-12-2008, 10:15 AM
Randy - Thanks for the pics and the book authors - I'll hunt them up through the library's inter-library loan system. Interesting adze - and a quite ancient design. I've seen a few "originals" of these forms fetch several thousand dollars at antique tool auctions. I'm afraid my budget isn't quite that large.:D

For now, I went with an antique shingling hatchet (single bevel) that I picked up for $30 at an MWTCA event and a Pfeil two-handed bowl adze. My impression of the adze so far is quite good - the steel will stand up to a real pounding. I'm thinking that the extra couple of hundred dollars for a bowl adze from another supplier is probably the hand-forged nature of them and additional prep work that the maker puts into them. The Pfiel was roughly ground, and it took a couple of hours with some sandpaper, diamond files and whetstones to get it to the same degree of sharpness as their carving tools come out of the box. After doing this, though, the roughly 25 degree bevel angle tolerated hogging out several pounds of poplar waste out of the inside of the dough bowl and needed only a little honing with a leather strop after that - no edge chipping.

My shingling hatchet didn't fare as well - the edge chipped out to a fair degree, even with an approximately 35 degree bevel. After restoring a fair number of these edge tools to use, my experience has been that most have survived to this day for a reason - typically, the steel is either too hard (the case with my shingling hatchet) or too soft so that the edge rolls under use.

Steve Friedman
12-17-2008, 12:33 AM
Just to chime in on the Hans Karlsson tools, I now own 6 of them and love them all, but I think you really only need two basic gouges to carve a bowl - the others are nice but not essential:

1. A bent hooped gouge (HK-10) can do everything except the bottom.
2. A wide shallow "dog-leg" gouge (HK-08) to do the bottom.

The next two most useful are:
3. Wide shallow bent gouge (HK-07) to get the sides smooth
4. Narrower deeper bent gouge (HK-06) for the corners

I also bought the straight hooped gouge (HK-13) because it is much more efficient than the bent gouge for removing wood, especially end grain. You still need the bent one, but the straight one is a real arm saver - especially when carving large bowls.

My last gouge is a deep and narrow straight gouge (HK-04), which I find terrific for working the area where the sides meet the bottom and for working the corner end grain.

The HK-04 is also a great spoon gouge, but I love using Del Stubbs' knives for carving spoons. I love the way Del's knives feel in my hand and find any opportunity to use them.

Although there are other adzes out there, I bought the Karlsson adze (HK-02), which I understand was designed for bowls and is different from the Gransfors Bruks gutter adze. It was expensive, but cheaper than the G-B one. I am still amazed by how effective it is at rough shaping the inside of the bowl. It is my favorite part of bowl making, probably because it is where the piece of wood really starts to look like a bowl.

Anyway, just my two cents. Happy carving!

Steve

Mike Minto
02-27-2009, 4:03 PM
Within the last year, i've been trying to do some simple carvings - the tools i purchased are from North Bay Forge, Hans Karlsson, Gransfors Bruks and Pinewood Forge. I highly recommend them as they have all been proven to be of high quality manufacture, hold an edge and feel great in the hand. mike