Auctions: I love 'em.  I now own a 1 1/2" socketed gouge, 10 3/8" overall, with a beautiful, early(?) wooden handle profile, 3 1/8" long, capped by 4 stacked leather washers.  (Sorry, this is the very first forum I've participated in and I know nothing about attaching photos to anything but an email with my Mac.)  Toward the upper end inside the blade curve in sans serif caps is stamped "LIGHTENING."  After no help in my own literature I wore out my welcome on Google (protesting all the while that no, I didn't mean "LIGHTNING").  I'll refrain from tweaking it into a "user" until I learn more about it.  Does anyone have a clue to this maker's mark?  Thanks.

For picture posting- read this thread- http://www.papawswrench.com/vboard/index.php?topic=61.0

Only reference I can find (Other than screw plates) is Dunn Edge Tool co, but I think Lightening was only used for their patented Hay Knife.

Davistown has a bio: http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bioHolt.htm

I doubt this is right for a gouge tho...

Thank you, Rusty!  Funny, I just three nights ago (5/31) found myself funneled to the Davistown Museum site to learn about a St. Johns, New Brunswick, Canada maker of a drawknife I'd been stumped by for long and long.  Anyway, if nothing else I can at least root around about Dunn Edge Tool Co.  You're the first to think "LIGHTENING" might've been made by anyone, beyond the fact of the gouge stamping itself.   *he laughs*   Thanks again.

It appears Dunn spelled it without the e also...

Well, I'd'a sworn I posted a Reply saying I was stumped — and then I returned yet again to the Davistown museum site you so graciously offered and there LIGHTENING was!  Thanks, Rusty, and that'd make the maker the Hiram Holt & Co., of East Wilton, Maine.  Phew.  Now I can put that gouge away and chew on something else.  (O:

Oh this is just so cool!
  My wife has an heirloom bread knife. Its a great bread knife. Or rather, bread saw would be more accurate.
It came from her grandmas drawer. It is not marked. It must have had a paper label or decal when new.
Her Grandma came from Maine.........  How cool is this?

See it on the left side? Notice that unmistakeable blade shape? 
Yeah the old handle was gone when I met it. But kitty loved the tool, so I made that rosewood.
      yours Scott

Oh Bear Your gouge appears to be a sculpture tool. With the short length and somewhat fragile looking handle, I don't expect it did much timber framing.
Probably carved the beautiful girl on the front to the boat.

I have a gouge kind of similar to yours (just a common Sargent though).
  The similarity is the width and the --ruined surface of the steel--.   

You don't care about the outside of socket gouges or the socket much.
  Its the inner sweep that does the business.
  I used flexible abrasives, and some skill, to clean mine up.
Be happy to get you some pix and tell the tale later, if you want. 
   S
 
 

Right, scott, I'd singled out carving/sculpture due to the size.  The leather-washers invite mallet-work too, though it doesn't appear to me that it's been tapped much — if at all.  And yeah, this beauty is nowhere as meaty as my timber-framing chisels.  The more I think about it, the less I'm inclined to turn it into a user, but I'd certainly enjoy seeing and reading about your work in that direction.  Oh, and your bread knife/saw.  And I thought My grandmother's was aggressive!  Hah!  Is that your handle on it?  And is the horsehead yours too?  Till next time...

I have a theory about leather washers on chisel handles.
  I see leather washers on either hickory or birch handles most times.
Either of these woods will crack pretty easy if abused at all. The hickory is good otherwise, and birch is so marginal it has to have them to even be effective at all.
I suspect the leather was used to address this??
  Anyway its a theory.

  I made all the kitchen knife handles. All were broken- abused- missing when I met them.
Some have cast pewter parts and were experiments in the techniques.
The "horse head butt cap" came from that original knife.  It was something remembered from my childhood.
  I remember, in the back of Popular Mechanics, an ad that read, "This genuine Swedish hunting knife for 99 cents." (or something close)
They must have run that ad for a decade or more.
And of course, it was this tiny thing with a 3" blade. :)
  So when I found one with a broken handle? I just had to restore it.

   They make abrasive flap wheels for polishing the insides of cylinders. When you find one a little smaller than the sweep of your gouge you can mount it on a fast 3/8" drill (0-3000) and it does a pretty good job.
Except it would love to screw up and fall out of the sweep and bite your steel where you don't want it to, in a heartbeat!
  I clamp the tool down low in a wood vise and use both hands on the drill. Elbows definitely down and tight, drill held low and the butt of the drill against myself.
For maximum grip/control.
  Go through a couple grits like this, and it gets pretty nice pretty fast.
     yours Scott   

There are a couple better than the commercial flap wheels.   The cream of the crop for finishing are 3M's finishing wheels.  Pricey, but they come in many different grits and when used properly they can take you all the way to polish.  They polish everything from metals to stone and come in multiple sizes. 

Another great tool is a split mandrel.  These come in two sizes for a dremel type tool. I have seen others that fit a motor for grinder type.  Basically it is just tthat, a split mandrel. Fold a strip of emery cloth or wet/dry in half and slip it into the mandrel and voila, instant flapwheel.

Last but not least, for rapid stock removal is a type of grit impregnated plastic material, kinda like a scrubie.  They work so-so.

Chilly