She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. “Are you happy?” she said. “Am I what?” he cried. But she was gone—running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently.
Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451
So confession time. I'm not a great carver and its not something I particularly enjoy. I also have to admit to using rasps more than I care to admit. And while I'm not very good at carving I am, or rather was, not very good at sharpening carving gouges. As I have stated before my goal in sharpening is speed and repeatability. I sharpen to get back to work. Unlike Abe Lincoln I derive no pleasure from sharpening. That having been said it's important to not sharpen because you don't like to.
So I don't even know what rabbit hole I was down when I saw how you can use the little Tormek holder to sharpen carving gouges using their tool. Which is great but it is spendy and I'm pretty happy with my methods but it did plant the seed of how to adapt my Veritas strip sander to their guide bar.
I bought the guide bar from Tormek (actually sharpeningsupplies.com) and after some head scratching and hole drilling it works amazingly well. This is the position of the gouge and the best part is the belt is running away from the edge so you can't tear the strip. I run the tool all the way from 15ų (about 800 grit) to 5ų (about 2000 grit and they are scary scary sharp. Just amazingly sharp. It's super simple too. Just put the gouge in the holder up to the ferrule and use a magic marker to color the bevel and check the point of contact. Once it's good lock the bar in place and run thru the grit. Super simple and repeatable.
Here's my latest chair, a Contemporary rocker, waiting for paint. Really happy the way this one came out.
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