Another tip that may be helpful to you is that your tools should be "sticky sharp". That's sharp enough that when you lightly touch the edge of the tool to a fingernail, it feels like it sticks to the nail, rather than sliding off. Of course it's not actually sticky. It sticks because is cutting into the nail at a microscopic scale, usually not perceptible to the naked eye. If the tool slides on your thumbnail, then it's not sharp enough.
I also go for as low an angle as the tool can support. Many tools come at 25-30 degrees, which is more what you need for heavy tool like a carpentry chisel. But for a carving chisel that will be pushed by hand, you can usually go for a more shallow angle. Some chisels and gouges can handle 20-22 degrees provided they are used carefully, but the angle you need will also depend on what you are cutting. These are estimates. It's hard to actually measure these angles on small tools. I basically sharpen a new tool to the bevel I like, and if it can't handle that bevel on a test piece of wood, then I back off a little to a slightly steeper angle and try again.
When sharpening, I go to 1200 grit on a diamond plate, then polish that on a translucent Arkansas stone. I have a couple of translucent Arkansas slip stones for the gouges, but some super fine sandpaper works as well (wet-dry paper designed for autobody paint, wrapped around a dowel). I then strop with white polishing stick compound. For flat chisels I strop on printer paper taped down to a hard flat surface. For gouges, I use a piece of belt leather, also fixed to a hard flat surface. The paper gives a flat bevel, which I like for inletting. The leather gives a rounded micro bevel, which is good for carving. The leather can be folded for stropping the inside of a shallow gouge.
In my experience, it works best for these stropping surfaces to be flat at bench height. (I sharpen at vise height and strop at bench height.) That height allows me to better use my knuckles as the guide to hold the angle where I want it. I grip the tool in my dominant hand and let my knuckles slide across the strop, holding the tool at the angle I want. I use my other hand to press the tip into the strop material as needed. In my case, I just tape the paper or leather to the top of an anvil I have in the shop, but a piece of 16g sheet steel laying on the bench top would work just the same.
The most common options for gouges edges are a straight edge or a thumbnail edge. I like the thumbnail edge for flat work. It works well in a shearing stroke, which involves moving the gouge at an angle or in an arc as it is pushed forward, rather than just pushing straight forward. And the thumbnail shape can get into curved areas against a carved border—areas that a straight edged gouge can’t reach.
This photo shows a couple of antique gouges and a modern one. One antique has a straight edge. The other has a shallow thumbnail. (One of these started life as a flat chisel and some old dude turned it into a #3 sweep with a shallow thumbnail long before I bought it and reconditioned it.) The third is a modern chisel that I reground into a shallow gouge decades ago. I couldn’t afford better tools then and that one did the job. I'm showing these to say that you can expand your tool kit to include some shallow gouges without having to spend a lot of money.
Sorry the posts are so long. I hope they are helpful.
