Flexcut #361 Spoon Gouge

[Eddy-Smiles]

I bought a #361 Flexcut spoon gouge at our club carving show last January and just got around to trying it out the other day. The reason that I purchased it is that I thought that it might make carving deep sweeps in relief carvings a little easier and neater. The trouble is that I'll be hanged if I can figure out how it's supposed to work. It sure isn't doing or at least working like I thought it would! I looked on the Flexcut site but all they do is sell them, or at least that's all that I could find.

In twenty-five words or less can anyone provide some words of enlightenment?


Be kind!!!!!!............

[Thomp]

Spoons are designed for carving the bottom of an extreme recess. A good example would be carving the bottom of a ladle.

here

22

[Eddy-Smiles]

Thomp... I figured that much, But what kind of a stroke or motion is used when working the spoon. What's the secret? It just didn't seem to want to bite into the wood for me.

[Thomp]

i couldn't tell you for sure,

i read that last post on the flexcut site,

i suspect it would be used after a scorp or hooked blade knife got done scooping out the bowl in the spoon,
this flexcut speciality tool would be used much like a scraper to remove the tool marks in the rounded bottom flat, sheering with the grain like a scraper..

like scraping a hoe handle with a broken piece of coke bottle, (or glass shaving) after making the handle.

i would never had thought there was such a tool, when theres always thin strips of sandpaper around, you could pull between the spoon and your thumb applying little feathered pressure with thumb

[Eddy-Smiles]

That's sort of what I did on my last relief carving but I thought that with the spoon gouge I could speed up the process. Oh well! I'm about to start a new project of a bearded guy that I downloaded from carving patterns. I'll give the gouge another try then.

[rick-in-seattle]

Eddy,
That particular gouge will benefit from some careful "heel" removal.
Take a close look at the tool; looking straight-on at the cutting edge.
You will probably see what I am talking about right away.

[Eddy-Smiles]

Thanks Rick! I'll do just that although it's a darn shame to have to. You'd think that Flexcut would have their tools fine tuned before going into production.