Thread: Minimum tools needed for relief carving

Hi Trav, Same answer as previous post.....cheap set of lino print cutting chisels. After that you'll have a better idea of what you want. Or worst case if you want it at all.
The reality is there is no end to what you can buy to carve wood, chisels,files riflers, powercutters,chainsaws etc etc. An old guy who lives nearby once dropped in while I was making a gunstock, He turned up a few days later to show off his absolutely brilliant(figured blackwood) gunstock he had just made for his broken shotgun. I was astounded of the job he had done and asked him what he used to make it........his answer, "an old saw and a bit of broken glass."

Using the Pfeil numbering system (a step away from the London Pattern Book)

1/8 stop chisel
3F/8, 5F/14, D5/3, 8/7 gouges,
12/8 V tool
Strop. honing compound, 1K/4K waterstones
12oz ShopFox carver's mallet
That will see you through most relief carvings of any size.

A pair of cabinet maker's 1/2" skews, scrubbed down to 20 degrees will be a nice addition.

Find and look through "Star's Sharpening Journey" to see most of those things. I got a bit windy, it's a long read.

When you get up to removing a lot more waste wood 9/15, 5/35 & 2/30 with a 30oz lead core mallet get it done.
Bigger yet, maybe a Stubai carver's adze, maybe an elbow adze.

To begin with, pick a wood that won't fight back. I read that jelutong is great, basswood is softer than UK Linden. I work in western red cedar, a little pine and a lot of Birch.

Thanks for the info guys.

Star is in Brisbane. Maybe you can find him.

Other than the starter collection of relief carving tools, I buy only what I need when I've absolutely convinced myself that I can use it a lot. Maybe 2 gouges per year, over 15 years and it's a very useful collection. Maybe it sounds impressive but it was a long time in coming.

Pfeil are expensive. One or two in a year doesn't hurt too much.

I can't tell you if buying crooked knife blades is better, hafting them myself, than buying fewer of them in a finished state. I have figured out that the handle size & shape is personal. I have a 25cm hand span. You might not like a grip that big = should be just large enough that the tips of your second and third fingers just touch the ball of your thumb. The boat-tail handle relaxes the stretch on your thumb. The blades are canted up 10-15 degree which relaxes the rotyatio of your wrist. Trashed some handles (rosewood & mahogany glue-ups) but I figured out why the old knives that I studied were built the way they were.

You can find them in the online collection of the University of British Columbia, Museum of Anthropology. I spent a day in the MOA, studying them.


eg Took 6(?) months to decide that I needed the 9/15. Everything I anticipated but I couldn't hit it hard enough with the 12oz/375g mallet to take much of a bite. That was the need. Off to Magard Log Home Building Tools to have a chat. Came home with the 30oz/940g lead core carver's mallet. What I really like about the 30 is that I can choke up on the handle, hold the head, and do the tap-tap-tap thing as well.