adze question

[Howard Pollack]

Hi-
I'd like to try my hand at bowl carving. I assume that the easiest way is to rough it out is with a bowl adze. Is that correct? I don't own one and would appreciate a recommendation. Also, I've seen them sharpened on either the inside or the outside of the bevel, does it make any real difference in this sort of work? Thanks.
-Howard

[AHill]

Depends on the size of your bowl whether an adze wastes the interior quicker than a large gouge. For bowls larger than around 10", a bowl adze is more efficient. You will need to be careful with an adze to avoid removing too much. It takes a lot more practice than using a gouge. I use a carving axe to roughly shape the outside of a bowl.

You'll find bowl adzes with bevels on the outside (outcannel) or inside (incannel). I think the inside bevel is better suited for bowls as long as the adze head is somewhat curved or bent (the head, not the edge).

[Phil S.]

I know zero about carving bowls, but here is a guy who does, David Fisher, and here's an informative video he made about carving bowls with an adze-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...dkeJoXHK_8

This site will either really inspire you or you'll give up in despair.

[Rob Young]

Howard Pollack said:

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Hi-
I'd like to try my hand at bowl carving. I assume that the easiest way is to rough it out is with a bowl adze. Is that correct? I don't own one and would appreciate a recommendation. Also, I've seen them sharpened on either the inside or the outside of the bevel, does it make any real difference in this sort of work? Thanks.
-Howard

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Missed opportunity for subject text : Let me adze you a question.

[Steve Friedman]

Agree with Allan's comments and I will never give up my Hans Karlsson adzes (yeah, I have 2), but I recall Justin Tyson posting about a really nice large dough bowl that he made using just a gouge and to excavate the insides. I wouldn't want to do that unless it was a small bowl, but if you're young and strong it can obviously be done.

For excavating the inside of bowls, I have only ever used out-cannel adzes, but know that the Mueller ones that Traditional Woodworker sells are in-cannel. I would think that sharpening an out-cannel adze would be easier. Curtis Buchanan has an excellent video on how to use a Bear Tex wheel to sharpen them. Not sure how I would sharpen an in-cannel one.

But, there are lots of folks who use adzes for shaping the outside of bowls. I prefer axe and spokeshave for the outsides, but look at the videos on the North Bay Forge website of the guy using an elbow adze to shape the inside and outside. I definitely want to try that one day.

North Bay

The choices of tools for bowl making are endless. For rough excavating the inside, there are no rules. It's all about removing as much wood as you can, as fast as you can, with the least amount of effort, the least chance of injury. Just need to be able to avoid removing too much.

Steve

[MichaelMouse]

Just a thought. Wedges act the same no matter where. An in-cannel adze will want to dig deeper when swung than an out. To me, makes out the proper for learning, in for later.

[Herebrooks]

Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYwsFsPIBYM
Jason Lonon is making great adzes, search him.
Bill

[Steve Friedman]

MichaelMouse said:

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Just a thought. Wedges act the same no matter where. An in-cannel adze will want to dig deeper when swung than an out. To me, makes out the proper for learning, in for later.

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Michael, I think you're right about the digging deeper part. Like a drawknife, bevel up digs deeper than bevel down.

But your post reminded me of something I read many years ago. It was a post on another forum by Bob Rozaieski describing the difference between in-cannel and out-cannel gouges. Not the same as an adze, but very interesting anyway. Here it is for anyone who may be onterested:

In-cannel gouges excel at paring a concave curve. Conversley, out-cannel gouges are for paring convex curves.

In paring situations, you want to make a cut parallel to the surface being pared (and perpendicular to the face). Using a gouge with the bevel on the wrong side would mean angling the tool severely, making accurate paring difficult at best, because you would be referencing the cut off of the bevel of the tool, not the flat side. Having the bevel on the proper side of the gouge (opposite of the reference side) allows you to make a vertical plunge cut, perpendicular to the face of the board, thereby making an accurate, square paring cut.

Consider the table apron below.



In-cannel gouges additionally are best for coping operations such as where two sections of molding meet at an inside corner like you might have in the gallery of a secretary or on a block front chest. These junctions are best coped rather than mitered to prevent an ugly separation of the corner during seasonal movements (not as obvious in a coped joint as a mitered joint), plus coping is easier than getting a precise, gap free miter.

Because the area being coped is typically concave, the incannel gouges work best. Think of the thumbnail profile on the inside edge of a cabinet door frame of a raised panel door. This joint is done with cope and stick bits with a router. However, in hand work, the rail is tennoned into the stile and the molded edge on the inside of the door frame meets at an inside corner. It's much easier to cope this joint instead of mitering it. It makes for a tighter fit and is less finicky to get right than an inside miter.

Of course if the molding is a complex series of convex and concave curves, it's easiest to use both in-cannel and out-cannel gouges together, using the in-cannel to cope the concave curves and the out cannel to cope the convex curves.

In-cannel and Out-cannel gouges can also both be used for carving operations. We typically think of out-cannel gouges for carving and this is generally true when we talk about relief carving of things like shells, B&C feet, acanthus knee carvings, etc. However, in doing larger, more sculptural type carving, like roughing in the shapes of a gooseneck molding on a bonnet top high chest, the out-cannel bench gouges (not thinner more delicate carving gouges) can be used to rough in the concave areas where the out-cannel will ride its bevel and the in-cannel bench gouges can be used to rough in the convex areas where the in-cannel will ride its bevel. Of course the convex areas can also be roughed in with a chisel.

Regarding turning an out-cannel into an in-cannel by grinding, this can be done as long as the tool is not of the laminated design where the harder tool steel is laminated to a softer backing steel. In these tools, the harder tool steel would be on the wrong side of the curve if you were to regrind. However, as long as the tool is not laminated but rather one solid piece of tool steel, you should be able to regrind an out-cannel into an in-cannel.

FWIW, I think in-cannel gouges are a very under-rated and under-used tool these days. Most of the time they are associated with patternmakers, however, there are plenty of uses for them in furniture making as well.

[MichaelMouse]

I pare a lot of concave areas with my outs. You make a cleaner cut when you can slide them slightly sideways when cutting, effectively lowering the cutting angle.

Always used in-cannels to get wood in large amounts out of the way.