Woodworking Kit

A soft leather roll holding a woodcarver’s working edges: a whittling knife with straight and hooked blades, palm gouges in a range of sweeps, V-parting tools, skew chisels, a small riffler file for relief work, a striking mallet of hornbeam, and a leather strop dressed with honing paste. Carvers, figurine-makers, and master joiners use such kits for the fine work — spoon-carving, decorative relief, inlay, and the shaping of small figures from seasoned billets. The tools are chosen one at a time over years and seldom match; a carver knows each by hand, and the steel is kept so keen it parts end-grain without tearing the fibers.