How to Make Wood Gouges From a Hacksaw Blade

Here’s a wood worker who needed some finer wood-carving tools, so he decided to make his own. The material he chose is a hacksaw blade and the video clearly shows how he forms three new hand chisels or gouges, using simple equipment he found around his shop.

He anneals the saw blade first, by heating it red-hot and allowing it to cool slowly. This makes it soft enough to be workable. Then he forms a jig by cutting a V into a hunk of steel bar stock and filing a thinner piece of stock to act as a male die to form a V chisel.

To make round gouges of varying sizes, he simply drills some square steel stock to form half-round holes, then welds the two pieces together and uses the shanks of the drill bits and a hammer to form the round portion.

To harden them, he heats them red-hot and plunges them into oil. Then he tempers them to make them less brittle behind the cutting portion.

A great way to get some more use out of an old saw blade.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.