The picture on Wood Central I referenced is a pretty good example of a
pointy gouge. Essentially, mine are a detail gouge with a point, and very
long ground-back wings, and some cheap spindle (cylindrical) gouges with a
slightly milder point. No bevel to them, just a carving-type curve to the
edge which allows me to choose my depth of cut by rolling along until I'm
grabbing as much as I care.

You can see the pointy detail gouge in use at
http://personalpages.tds.net/~upgeor...ing_inside.htm hogging out on a
flat bowl. When cutting end grain it's capable of some incredibly fast
work, as long as I can get the toolrest close, and with the point, it's not
necessary to bore a hole to get piece started. You push the point in, roll
left and sweep out and up toward the rim, then, in one uninterrupted move,
roll across the point to the right edge, sweeping down and in.

Forged gouges are what gouges used to be.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a... rrency=2&SID=
shows the two big ones I've been able to talk the family into getting me,
and the small one I still want to get. You can see how I rub the bevel
(yep, Arch, it rubs) at
http://personalpages.tds.net/~upgeor...20Pictures.htm

The advantage to the forged style is the uniform thickness. You can grind
the same bevel angle all the way across, making it capable of working like a
curved skew. (some people grind their skews convex to work like a gouge, so
why not?) Where it truly excels is in making the turn into the bottom of
the bowl. You can dip the nose as you come across that part where you
always tear out, and keep a continuous shearing action, rather than picking
up and tearing the uphill sections.
http://personalpages.tds.net/~upgeor...oth%20Four.htm The bowl I'm
cutting is yellow birch with a lot of grain reversals, and it almost shone
from the gouge.


Check Darrell's site http://www.aroundthewoods.com/roughing.shtml to see an
Oland tool - basically a bigass pointy gouge - at work in the hand of a
production turner.

"Ken Moon" wrote in message
k.net...
George,
I've seen your references several times to "pointy gouge" and "forged
pattern" gouges. How are these different from the average spindle or bowl
gouges, or are they just a regrind of one of these?
TIA