I have Ashley Iles In-cannel gouges No CS1 19mm, No4 19mm, No6 19mm and out cannel No3 Chisel 15mm
I got the In-cannel gouge No CS1 from NPU Years ago.
I got the In-cannel gouges No4 & No6 and No3 out cannel From Cillian O’Briain.
Cillian O’Briain uses these Ashley Iles In-cannel gouges No4 19mm, and out cannel No3 Chisel 15mm(for the scrape) on the NPU DVD.
My two favorite main gouges I have been using lately is No CS1 for the first gouge and No6 for the tails tone chamber.
I never got used to the No4 gouge as I think it could be a wee bit sharper so need to learn how to sharpen gouges.
I do not use knife first for to scrape the bark I use gouge CS1 , No3 and then the knife, after that on sandpaper. I couldn’t work the Cillian O’Briain scrape way with the No3.
I use an Ashley Iles CS1 for the main bed too. I use a narrower, tighter-radiused gouge for the tails (about a 12mm #7 I think, but maybe it’s a #5 - the number is illegible now). I then use a scraper to adjust the radius if desired, and to ease the two profiles into one smooth shape (from just above the shoulder, to the tails themselves).
I don’t know if Ashley Iles sells CS1 in single quantities; it’s not in their catalog. I think it’s a custom sweep (i.e. “Custom Sweep 1”); it was once stocked by NPU but for some reason the details seem to have become lost in the mists of time. I’ve suggested to Gerry that NPU ask Ashley Iles about supplying more CS1, if they can find the specifications… it seems to me that CS1 is approximately a 19mm #4 sweep, but possibly just between #4 and #5.
I use a straight chisel to start the back scrape, once the reed is assembled - mostly just using it to remove the outer bark and give the sandpaper some traction; it helps me form a well shaped scrape a bit faster.
Ashley Isles are a traditional UK firm who know just about all there is to know about making hand tools. They will make incannel versions if you ask them for a small surcharge, but I think still cheaper than buying through third parties. Contact them direct - it is a firm run by ‘real’ people. http://www.ashleyiles.turningtools.co.uk/
(No I don’t have shares in the company but as a pipemaker I appreciate their ‘craftsman’ approach to manunfacturing tools)
I didn’t want to spend money on an expensive gouge as I was only having a go at making reeds so I made these tools from stuff I already had .Most will recognise the jack plane,the blocks with the Stanley blades attached are made from oak flooring I fitted in a house and are home made versions of cabinetmaking tools that are used to make veneer banding. The other tool is a home made version of a gouging machine which works great. From raw tube to rough gouged slip takes about 30 seconds.
Fergus, the Stanley 4 inch/110mm chisel to works fine for me. The shank has about another 10 or 12 mm of useful length so that it lies flat in my shooting board. Maybe your shooting board is over-long? (My slips are 120mm long.)
I have the Cillian Ó Briain NPU Shooting board 108mm/4.25" long and another earlier shooting board also from NPU length 5"/127mm. My new Stanley straight chisel is long enough for slip upto 120mm without the handle hitting the shooting board.
It is a violin gouge. The handle is turned up a bit, so I works better than some of the new relativly short handled in-channel gouges that I’ve had access to in the US (like those available at Woodcrafters and Woodworkers supply) whose handles can be shorter than the shooting board.
The smallers ones (GL2, GL3) look useful too, but have no experience with them.
I think it’s funny that anyone would even know about Dastra. I have been using a “Screw” brand gouge from them, bought from Frank Mittemeyer (their supplier in the Bronx) for about 25 years. It came without a handle and was supplied completely (and I mean COMPLETELY) unground, although it was hardened. I don’t know what you would pay these days, but at the time, it cost about 6 or 7 bucks for a 25mm #6 gouge. You get what you pay for, as they say. I turned a boxwood handle for it, and after what seemed like about a weeks worth of grinding and sharpening and whatnot, it was okay and held an edge. I thought it was pretty rough, compared to what was also available at the time - the more expensive “Two Cherries” brand, (also from Der Faderland I think,) or the Rolls Royce “Pfiel” from Switzerland, but the Dastra was a LOT cheaper, so that’s what I got.
You can check about DASTRA on Michael Dow internet site - www.archcarving.com. He is great carver & also maker of amazing bellows for Uilleann pipes ect. He is using and selling DASTRA gouges for reedmaking. He said that these gouges are the wery best he ever tried until now. And he always used only best tools, so you can’t go wrong I think.
30 mm is massive for a reedmaking gouge. I don’t know of anyone else using something that wide. 15mm would actually do the job.
I think most folks are using 19mm aka 3/4", but that may have more to do with ready supply. In a 19mm gouge I like #4 or #5 sweep (#4 is a bit shallow - my Ashley Iles “CS1” custom sweep gouge seems to be in-between their current #4 and #5 offerings). Most folks would find the #4 hard to use because the sweep is so flat, so given a choice between the two I’d recommend #5. Note that sweeps are not independent of width, so my comments apply to 19mm / 0.75" only.
