Beaver Craft Wood Carving Tools

BeaverCraft tools are carving knives and gouges from a company in Ukraine, made for people who can't afford expensive tools, and on my own carvings they worked absolutely fine. They sent me a couple of sets to try. I carved with the gouges and with the knives, and I'll tell you what I liked and the couple of things I'm not the biggest fan of.

Do you want a gouge in your hand this month, and not after a year of saving? Would you like to see what a cheaper tool does in real wood before you pay for one? Then come with me while I open their box.

I love really good tools. I'm a tool junkie, you can call me that. I like to collect them and compare one brand with another, and in this course about tools I took a brand I think you can safely call new in the carving world.

Let me be clear about money first. These tools cost me nothing, and I do not make any money from those guys. Just because I got them for free, it doesn't mean I owe anybody a good review or a bad one. I wanted to judge them honestly, by whether I'd keep using them or not.

And yes, I'm probably a little biased. Ukraine used to be part of the country I was born in, the USSR, though I'm from the Russian part of it, and I moved to the United States a long time ago. To see people from there go into business, make tools and sell them in different countries is something I really admire and respect. But no, not really biased. I'll tell you the truth, good and bad.

What I found in the two BeaverCraft sets

• One set held four knives and the other four gouges, and each came with a roll, a strop and green paste, all included in the box.

• The knife set had Band-Aids in it, the first time I saw that.

• My favorite part is the handle on the big gouge, with a notch that just feels good.

• For my taste, the bevel on the outside sits high.

• Straight from the box, a gouge wanted sharpening, and a touch on the stropping wheel got it carving.

How good are BeaverCraft carving tools?

Good enough that I would buy them. If I were shopping for a gouge and didn't want to pay what the big names ask for one, I would definitely buy tools from those guys. At the end of the review I asked if they're worth it, and I said one word. Absolutely.

I even said they should charge more. Then I took it back, because if they charge more, they'll make a lot less sales. So give them a try.

Why would anyone need one more tool brand?

The problem number one is how much good tools cost. Pfeil, Swiss made, you can buy in almost every country, even in Ukraine and in Russia. There's Henry Taylor. Ashley Iles too, and Two Cherries. Even Flexcut is available almost everywhere, though I don't use much Flexcut myself. I don't think a new brand comes to compete with them.

Let me tell you a story. I was born in the Soviet Union, and I was carving since childhood. Even when you could find good tools there, like Pfeil, the problem was how much you had to spend, and if you don't make much a month, what are you going to do? There's always the choice to make your own. You either carve, or you make your own tools.

I like that process, and I'm able to make my own tools, and I even have some fun doing it. But I'm a wood carver, not a tool maker. I made my tools because I had to, since I couldn't spend $40, or 45, or $60 per gouge.

Later on, yes, absolutely. I bought a lot of tools that cost twice that, and one gouge could be $150. But that was later.

Why did BeaverCraft start making carving tools?

As I understood it from their website, it began with people who really like carving as a hobby and found the tools too expensive. So they decided to make their own, and to make quality tools they could sell to people just like them, people who can't afford expensive tools.

You can always find cheaper tools. But not all cheaper tools are really good quality. So they had two questions to answer. How do you get quality tools, and what do you do if you don't want to spend too much on one?

What comes in a BeaverCraft set?

A roll, the tools, some green paste and a strop. My package had the roll in it, and I love that idea. If you go shopping, a roll by itself could cost you, but I believe here it's just included for free. One set held the knives. The second set was exactly the same idea, with the same roll, paste and stropping leather, plus a set of gouges.

The stropping leather is really thick, double shoulder I would say, and they even branded it. That is something really nice, just the BeaverCraft name on it. With it came a green diamond paste. Yes, you can buy the paste and the strop on your own, but then you have to spend more money. Those guys know how to do business, and do it well.

In part three of my stropping lesson I said their paste had become one of my favorites recently. It just hones really nicely.

Another time a package came straight from Ukraine with a leather tool roll in it, free, of course. That's probably the most beautiful tool roll I ever had, and the day I showed it, I was carving the Venice Room with their brand new knife.

Why put Band-Aids in a box of carving tools?

Just in case you cut yourself. That was what I loved most about the knife set, because they included the most important thing in your carving shop, Band-Aids. I never saw anybody else do it. Maybe somebody else does, but I did not experience that.

And it's true, carvers do cut themselves. I've cut myself many times. I remember a day when, if I counted, it would come to maybe over 100 times. It wasn't because I was not careful, that's just the nature of carving.

Now I almost never cut myself anymore. But on the Venice Room I said to keep some first aid wherever you carve, Band-Aids and stuff like that, in the shop, on the kitchen table or in the garage. Sometimes you work alone and nobody is close. Those tools are sharp, and you can cut yourself really deep.

My children knew where to find all my Band-Aids when they were young. They'd come to my shop and look for them. One day I came looking and they were all gone, because my youngest daughter loved them and put them on without even a need. So I had to keep them in two spots.

Are BeaverCraft knives good for chip carving?

To a certain degree, yes, you can do chip carving with them with no problem. I did it on one of my pieces, and it came out fine. But they aren't really the knife for chip carving. The reason is how thick the knife is. It's a kind of thick metal, so it's really comfortable for knife work in your hand, the kind where you hold a stick and shape it.

The day the box came, I tried the first knife on my furniture panel just as it came, with no stropping and no sharpening. Beautiful set of four knives, and they feel really comfortable. But I saw right away that a knife like that isn't made for that job, and it's not meant to just dig in. I didn't want to break one, so I went to a gouge.

Don't get me wrong, I love a knife. I do a lot of work with just one knife. I believe the most ancient wood carvers used only a knife, and not even too ancient, maybe the 10th, 9th or 8th century, the Viking world. If you're on a long boat, you can't take all the tools with you, but you can always grab one knife and carve something with it.

Some people call that one-knife work Viking style carving. I said in the Greek acroterion course that I don't really agree, because not all northern people were Vikings.

Which gouges come in the BeaverCraft set?

Four came in the set they sent me. I got a short bent gouge, a normal straight gouge, a long bent gouge and a V tool. They look a little different from what you're probably used to. They're using high carbon steel, it's what they say, and I don't know how good it is or not. But I tried those tools, and they work just fine. Really, really good.

One thing in the shape, I'm not the biggest fan of. It doesn't bother me at all. In my furniture panel lesson, the gouges came with two extra ones, a number eight and a number seven at 22 millimeters (7/8 in).

The size was what I liked right away. That's a true European size, and that is really handy. It gets you really close to the detail, and it still works with the mallet or just by hand.

What makes the BeaverCraft handle special?

The notch. They also sent me a big gouge, a full size long bent, and first I looked at the finish of the metal. Those guys really like quality, I can tell you right away. They polished it nicely. But the number one thing I love about this tool, the thing I see that others don't do, is the handle, especially this notch.

When you're carving and you hold it, it just feels good. The size fits the hand perfectly, at least my hand. The handle is hardwood, a really good one, and they took care of how they set the steel in.

What is wrong with the bevel on BeaverCraft gouges?

For me, the bevel on the outside is a little too high. I'm going to be honest with you, though. I saw only one brand that does it correctly right when they make the tool. Only one, and I'm not going to say which. The rest of them, no matter how expensive or how cheap, didn't do the right thing.

Carving by hand, I place my hand underneath. With a good bevel, for me, my knuckle touches the piece of wood and I start carving. This one just rides on the heel. I raised it a lot on camera, and I still couldn't grab the carving. Again, that's just my taste.

The problem is my shoulder. Raise the tool too high, and I have to raise my elbow and my shoulder, and you get really tired. With a mallet, the bevel is supposed to be a little higher, so the mallet stays clear. But even for the mallet, this one is high. As I said in my lesson on micro tools, even for mallet work I still make my own bevels really long.

So, guys, if you're listening, please take that bevel a little lower, just a slight bit. That bevel doesn't decide if I buy the tools or not. Everybody else does exactly the same thing.

I said the same on the furniture panel the day their box came. I would change the bevel on their number eight. I really like low bevels, but all the other companies do the same thing, a really high bevel when you buy brand new, and I still have to redo the bevels on all of them. In a livestream in April 2020 I said that when I get brand new tools, I always do a stage number one and reshape them to a much lower bevel.

For softer woods, in my Maine sharpening class, I said a low bevel takes care of the physical problem. You're not going to get pain or get tired in your shoulder and elbow, and you can carve all day long. I call it a low bevel. Some people call it a long bevel. Hardwood is its own question, with its own lesson on the bevel for hardwood.

What else would you change on a BeaverCraft gouge?

Only a small cavity, and it has nothing to do with carving. If I were building those tools, I'd fill it with some kind of epoxy right inside and then set it. I think that would be a really wise idea. The cavity is no big deal for me at all, and it would not stop me from buying them.

That one is about looks. The fix takes about one minute, and I can always fill that cavity myself.

Do BeaverCraft gouges come sharp out of the box?

Not quite sharp enough for me. On the furniture panel I didn't sharpen them or do anything to them first. I took their number five, 12 millimeters, half an inch, and right away I said I guessed I needed to sharpen it. Right then it was not too sharp for me.

I had touched it a little on a stropping wheel, so I tried it in the wood, and yes, it does work. The number eight needed sharpening too. I also said that day it was too early to judge, and that sometimes it's almost impossible to say right away.

Did BeaverCraft tools hold up on real carving?

They did, on everything I tried. The first was a Byzantine acanthus leaf, a project we did in my lessons in person, and I used their tools on that piece. That piece isn't finished, so don't judge. The tools did the job.

I also tried the knives and carved a little bit of a piece with them, and that was fine too. Then I even tried them on furniture, a piece we were working on for my online school. The relief there is really low, and they still did fine.

Where could you buy BeaverCraft tools?

When I made the review, they had an Amazon store in the United States, so you didn't have to wait on shipping. In Europe I said you could go straight to their website and buy from them.

For anyone still choosing, I covered which tools to buy first, and I tested a Schaaf set of twelve gouges in this course too.

Do you have a gouge or a knife put away in a drawer? Would you like to see it carve a real acanthus leaf? Then pick a project on the start page, and bring whatever tools you own.

Shall we carve?