Please help me make a tool list.

[Veen]

It"s time to step up from my beginner set of tools and get a bunch of quality tools for relief carving. I am not after brand suggestions here. What I am hoping to hear is the 6-8-10 tools that are must haves for relief carving. I will be working with 1X material mostly doing animals, landscapes, leaves and some lettering.
I am thinking a hooked skew might be interesting....
So please tell me what tools do you grab for the most often ???

[squbrigg]

Good question, and I'll see if I can give a half way sensible answer.

For small sized relief carvings I use:

#1 single bevel, about 3/8" wide

a # 3 x 3/8" or little wider

a #5 X 3/8" or little wider

a #7 x 3/8" or little wider

a #9 x 3/8 or a little wider

a # 11 x 3/8 or a little wider

a #12 "V" tool, I like the steep 60" one, maybe 1/4"

a #2 bullnose tool, rounded edges

a hooked skew 3/8" blade

a bent #3 gouge x 3/8"

and finally a good detail knife, Flexicut or similar.

This should get you started in relief carving and handle most small work, if you get into larger scenes, get larger tools.

Bob

[Veen]

Thanks for the reply Squbrigg. You always have good info.
Now if I can just figure out what all the numbers mean.....my curent tools have no numbers. I just call them my chisel, skew, U and V. Lol

1. I am looking at ordering some pfiel tools and under say #5 there are sweeps, spoons, fishtails gouges and long bent gouges??? Which do you refer to??
2. How about for undercarving like around leaves etc what tool works well??

[doris]

hello veen, my advise might be quite different, but since you asked me i want tell you : ... yes, i believe you are right, that beginner sets are rubbish, and tool sets leave you with a lot of tools you hardly ever need...

so, what i am using ? due to circumstances, i cant afford much, so my tools are still very limited. i have some 100 years old carpenter chisels, which i regrinded to my needs... but, my newer tools are all pfeil tools.

and i use mostly only 5 tools at all : i use one deep tool (its a regrinded carpenter tool, i think it is a #8, 10mm, but i cannot say for sure, as no numbers on them), then i use two number #5 tools from pfeil, one is 5mm the other 12mm wide. these have a moderate curvature, and are useful for a lot of things. and i use two #2 tools from pfeil, again one being 5mm the other 12mm wide. these are almost flat tools, very good to smooth surfaces, and backgrounds for reliefs....

most of my carvings i do only with these 5 tools, sometimes i additionally use a very small u-gouge (is #11,2mm pfeil)...

meanwhile i have some more tools, but still these few do 95% of al my work... so, i would recommend, get some tools 5 or 6 of similar shapes, need not be excately same, and start carving reliefs. after some time, you will learn what these tools can do, it is amazing how much each of it can do. and, you will experience what your own way of carving requests for tools... i would not buy any speciality tools , like bend ones for now, as they are only to make work more convinient, but most of the time, the straight tools can do the same. bend tools can only do very special work, and before you not have done a few relief carvings, you cannot know if your style of carving requires them. until recently i had not a single one, and it was fine. i bought the first bend tool more since i was curious, but was disapointed, somewhat...

even though i have those : i never use v-tools , i never use flat tools, like #1 tools, they only dig their corners into the wood. they might be good for very speical purpose, but overall they mainly make a mess,,,, #2´s with their ever so slight curvature serve much better even though one would think to grab a flat tool... i never use knifes, though i have some, since a gouge always makes cleaner and more controled cuts than a knife can

having said al this, i should add, that, to me, the way pfeil sharpens the tools makes them pretty useless,,,so, in a sense, i buy pfeil tools as "blanks" and resharpen them immediately, to make them all very slightly bullnosed, and with a very slight belly instead a flat bevel. no inside bevel...

whops, probably, much more than you wanted know, but i hope its helpful......

ps ,,,oh, i forgot, i have a small skew for the occasion when no other tool can reacch in a tight space to cut free a chip. i use it only for that, but if i not had it, it were harder...

...ps 2 ... undercutting is not what i do...it is useless, it weakens the wood, since the wood "above" the undercut is freefloating, and it creates only artificial shadows... a relief obtains its shadows by good modeling of the shapes, for example the leaves. if this modeling is well done, no undercutting is necessary,,,even if you carve only 5mm deep, as i have in my prickly beauty relief...there is not a single undercut but the shapes read perfectly even from far...

[minowevie]

Originally Posted by doris

hello veen, my advise might be quite different, but since you asked me i want tell you : ... yes, i believe you are right, that beginner sets are rubbish, and tool sets leave you with a lot of tools you hardly ever need...

so, what i am using ? due to circumstances, i cant afford much, so my tools are still very limited. i have some 100 years old carpenter chisels, which i regrinded to my needs... but, my newer tools are all pfeil tools.

and i use mostly only 5 tools at all : i use one deep tool (its a regrinded carpenter tool, i think it is a #8, 10mm, but i cannot say for sure, as no numbers on them), then i use two number #5 tools from pfeil, one is 5mm the other 12mm wide. these have a moderate curvature, and are useful for a lot of things. and i use two #2 tools from pfeil, again one being 5mm the other 12mm wide. these are almost flat tools, very good to smooth surfaces, and backgrounds for reliefs....

most of my carvings i do only with these 5 tools, sometimes i additionally use a very small u-gouge (is #11,2mm pfeil)...

meanwhile i have some more tools, but still these few do 95% of al my work... so, i would recommend, get some tools 5 or 6 of similar shapes, need not be excately same, and start carving reliefs. after some time, you will learn what these tools can do, it is amazing how much each of it can do. and, you will experience what your own way of carving requests for tools... i would not buy any speciality tools , like bend ones for now, as they are only to make work more convinient, but most of the time, the straight tools can do the same. bend tools can only do very special work, and before you not have done a few relief carvings, you cannot know if your style of carving requires them. until recently i had not a single one, and it was fine. i bought the first bend tool more since i was curious, but was disapointed, somewhat...

even though i have those : i never use v-tools , i never use flat tools, like #1 tools, they only dig their corners into the wood. they might be good for very speical purpose, but overall they mainly make a mess,,,, #2´s with their ever so slight curvature serve much better even though one would think to grab a flat tool... i never use knifes, though i have some, since a gouge always makes cleaner and more controled cuts than a knife can

having said al this, i should add, that, to me, the way pfeil sharpens the tools makes them pretty useless,,,so, in a sense, i buy pfeil tools as "blanks" and resharpen them immediately, to make them all very slightly bullnosed, and with a very slight belly instead a flat bevel. no inside bevel...

whops, probably, much more than you wanted know, but i hope its helpful......

ps ,,,oh, i forgot, i have a small skew for the occasion when no other tool can reacch in a tight space to cut free a chip. i use it only for that, but if i not had it, it were harder...

...ps 2 ... undercutting is not what i do...it is useless, it weakens the wood, since the wood "above" the undercut is freefloating, and it creates only artificial shadows... a relief obtains its shadows by good modeling of the shapes, for example the leaves. if this modeling is well done, no undercutting is necessary,,,even if you carve only 5mm deep, as i have in my prickly beauty relief...there is not a single undercut but the shapes read perfectly even from far...

Again Doris, you have answered many quistions I was going to ask, and some I didn't even know to ask. thanks Evie,,,, you have saved me alot of money. thanks

[Veen]

Thanks so much for the great input!!
Do you all use a mallet on the smaller stuff?? like a 1x 20X 6"

[squbrigg]

I favour fishtail gouges, and those listed are all available from Pfeil, Pfeil is my favorite tools. For undercutting, a #3 would be my choice, that and a hooked skew, which is an Ashley Isles tool. I undercut some, as I find it offers an effect that I like, making some things stand out from the background more. As there is no stress on a relief carving, I don't find strength to be a problem, if you are careful. Just my opinion, I'm sure others have their own methods that they are happy with.

Bob

[Veen]

Doris and Squbrigg I really respect your carving and your input as I am sure this topic comes up alot and people ignore it after awhile.
I have taken the best of both your lists and gotten a good feeling for my own list. I just now ordered a bunch of pfiel tools. More importantly because of you guys I did not order a "kit" even though they are tempting because you seem to get more. But based on your experience I would just be getting more useless tools to throw in the drawer.
Now I have to go to the window to see if the UPS is here yet.... well maybe tomorrow Lol. Thanks again.

[pallin]

Veen - I agree with Doris on the choice of relief tools. The Pfeil #3-12 is the one I use most. I have some long bent and spoon gouges; rarely use them. I also have some larger (20 mm) sizes that I never use. I do use some small V-tools and narrow gouges for details. Rarely use a mallet, but I do use a knife for stop cuts.
That said, buy what YOU will use. Avoid making a fetish of your carving tools.

[doris]

veen, yes i use mallet on every carving,,,a mallet is a very subtle tool, you can use it to bang away big chunks of wood, but also with very delicate taps, you have lots of control to make very precise small cuts..., i do not use mallet towards the end of carving work though, then i cut by hand with shaving cuts removing very thin wood pieces to get best final surface.