"Kevin" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello All,
Just got back from visiting the wife's family in China and brought back
some carving tools - gouges of various sweeps and a few straight and
skew chisels. My idea is to dabble a bit in carving bowls. Plan is to
turn the outside of the bowl, do a bit of carving, and then turn the
inside.
Questions are about the sharpening the gouges. I've snooped about a
bit on the Internet and found a couple of ideas. One involves getting
a good piece of wood, taking the gouge you wish to sharpen and cutting
a groove in the wood. The inside of the groove is then filled with
some sharpening compound. To sharpen, merely put the gouge in the
groove and rib. The secind idea is to get a piece of PVS of
approximately the right ID (or OD for gouges sharpened on the inside of
the flute(?), atach sandpaper of an appropriate grit, and sharpen away!
The PVC could be formed to the correct radius with hot water.
Any other ideas or links to instructive pages would be appreceiated.
Thanks


I use the hard felt wheel and the green stuff from Lee Valley as a strop for
mine. Slips handle the inside, since you rarely do anything but renew the
hone.

White pine and compound will work, or if you have some old leather power
belt pieces, as I do, use them in place of the wood.