You said You like ASHLEY ILES but reach for PFEIL (Swiss made) more often [ WOOD CARVING TOOLS ]

I love Ashley Iles steel and I still pick up the Swiss tool most days. Those two things are not in a fight. One is about what the metal is made of, the other is about the shape ground onto the end of it, and the shape is what decides whether I can reach the bottom of a shadow.

Somebody watched enough of my videos to catch me out. He had heard me praise the English tools for years, then counted what was actually in my hand while I carved. Fair question. I owe him a straight answer.

What to know before you buy either one

• Both makers are good. This is not a warning about a bad brand.
• The Pfeil number 11 carries a wing roughly five millimetres longer than the Ashley Iles of the same width.
• Longer wing means I reach deeper, and depth is where shadow comes from.
• The Pfeil wing also spreads instead of running straight up, which blends an acanthus curve.
• On steel alone I would still buy the English tool.

What makes a veiner a number 11?

A veiner is the tool that carves the veins, and the number 11 is its sweep. Number 11 is always the letter U, the English letter U, and that shape is the whole reason it can do what follows. Worth saying plainly: a gouge is not a veiner, a veiner is not a chisel, and none of the three is interchangeable. They wear the same handle and the same steel, so people mix them up constantly.

How much longer is the Swiss wing?

Four to five millimetres at a 12 mm width, which sounds like nothing and is not nothing. Lay both tools into the same block, one mark next to the other, line up the bottoms, and the difference shows up immediately in how far the side of the tool carries on before it stops.

That extra steel is what lets me get down inside a form instead of skating over the top of it.

Why does depth matter that much?

Wood carving is all about shadow, light against dark, and very little else besides. Put the tool under a relief form and the deeper you get, the more beautiful the shadow that form throws. A leaf carved shallow reads as a drawing of a leaf. The same leaf carved deep reads as a leaf, from across the room, in whatever light the room happens to have.

That is the whole argument, and it is why a few millimetres of steel on the side of a tool is worth an hour of anybody's attention. Hold the work high and steady while you do it, in a vise rather than your fingers, or the depth you are chasing turns into a slip.

What does a spreading wing do that a true U cannot?

A spreading wing blends where a true U digs. Look closely at the wing of the Swiss tool and it does not run straight up from the bottom of the U. A slight curvature sits in it, a spread, not huge, and it changes what happens when you lay the tool into an acanthus movement.

I carve a lot of those movements. With a true U shape I get a deep U groove and a hard edge either side of it. With the spread I can rotate a little to the right, a little to the left, and blend the cut away into the surface instead of leaving a trench. Two Cherries make a true U with a long wing as well, so this is not some secret of one factory.

Which steel does he actually prefer?

The English steel, and I will not soften that. If I were comparing the two on steel alone, on the handle, on the size and the feel of a full size tool in the hand, I would probably just buy Ashley Iles. In my opinion they are wonderful quality tools, and I am not talking about how they look.

Plenty of companies make a beautiful looking tool with steel that is not there. Sheffield steel is the usual answer, except there are many different steel makers inside Sheffield and they are not the same.

I have broken a few of the Swiss tools over the years, and one English edge too, if I am honest.

Long enough with both to say that without hedging.

Can one number 11 do the work of several gouges?

One tool covers several sweeps, and that is what earns its place before any brand argument starts. Carve straight down with a number 11 and you have done what a 9 would do. Give it a small rotation and the cut takes on a 7. Lay it over further, almost onto its flank, and what comes out sits near a 3.

Four sweeps out of one handle, decided by how you tilt it. The number 9 cannot return the favour, because the excavation has to go deep the number 9 runs out and the 11 does not.

Pick a spot on the edge of that U and read across it. Here to here is about a 9. Move either side and you are at an 8, then a 7. Out onto the flank and the cut lands close to a 3. Not a trick. Plain geometry, and it opens up the moment you stop holding every tool at the same angle.

How do you undercut with a veiner?

Rotate it and go in under the form. Use a small one, two and a half millimetres does nicely. Enter as though carving straight down. Turn it, run in beneath the edge, and what comes out is a shadow you cannot get any other way.

Reverse the tool slightly as you go and the volute or the leaf above it starts to float clear of its background.

Shadow does it. A shallow leaf and a deep one are the same drawing until the light arrives.

Why keep a number 17 on the bench?

Number 17 looks like a V-tool and is not one. The bottom of it carries a much bigger gouge part, so it behaves like a number 9 with a wider spread, and I use it down inside acanthus cuts where I want to play with rotation to the right and to the left.

The reason I reach for it is what it does not do. It does not leave a sharp line. I do not want to see a sharp line anywhere in that kind of work.

And the number 18, the sheller?

Number 18 sits right between the 17 and the 11, and it is called a sheller because it carves shells. It carries that same slight curvature the 17 has. Lay marks from 17, 18 and 11 side by side in a scrap and the family resemblance is obvious, and so is the gap each one fills.

Why are the V-tools more limited?

Their wings are dead straight. V-tools carry the numbers 12 through 16, and they come down to an almost sharp point with a tiny gouge part at the bottom. A slight sweep runs down there, a little gouge, but the wings themselves are really straight, and that is what limits you when you want a soft cut.

Worth knowing for a historical reason too. When a client asked me for tools authentic to the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century in Venice, the V-tool was off the table. They did not have it. They did not use it in Venice at that date. Almost everything was gouges.

Does half a millimetre really matter?

On a number 11 that fraction decides whether you can enter a corner at all. The Hugo Pfeil I keep reaching for measures 2.5 mm, not two and not three, and that gap is sometimes exactly what gets me into an area the next size up refuses. Still a number 11. Same letter U, same job, a shade narrower.

Nobody sells you a tool on half a millimetre. You find it out after a few years, on one awkward corner, and then you keep that tool where you can reach it.

Mine lives within arm's length of the bench now.

Which makers still offer a full line?

Only two of them still carry one, and it matters more than a catalogue page suggests. The sweep is the curvature of the tool, and a full line means every sweep at every width, which matters more in carving than in almost any other trade because the shape of the tool is the shape of the cut.

Pfeil is a huge manufacturer and the tools are on a shelf in nearly every country. Ashley Iles carry a big line too. Henry Taylor I like very much, and I like how their tools sit in my hands, but they no longer keep a full line of carving tools, which quietly takes them out of the running when you need one specific sweep at one specific width.

That gap shows up on the day you need one sweep at one width and nobody stocks it.

Which tool is right for which cut?

Here is the short version of what I have been describing, laid out so you can see where each one stops.

Why did he stop naming brands on camera?

Availability, plain and simple. You should be able to buy the tool you just watched me use. There are more than 2,500 videos on the school site and I name the tool in most of them, its sweep and its width, but a while back I stopped naming the maker.

Here is the reason. One of my favourite number 11s is a 2 and a half millimetre Hugo Pfeil, German, and you have almost certainly never heard of the brand. Beautiful European steel. Go and look for one and you will not find it outside an auction site. Telling you to use a tool you cannot buy is not teaching.

I own most of the brands, the ones sold now and a good many from the past, and a fair number of them are tools you simply cannot order. So when the camera is running I name the number and the width and leave the maker out of it, because those two numbers travel to whatever brand is on the shelf near you.

Set them out on the bench by number and you stop caring whose name is stamped on the handle.

Are the old English makers worth chasing?

Some of them, if you enjoy the hunt. Addis ran ten generations, and one of the Herring brothers married a daughter of the Addis family, so those two names are tangled together. Both firms took prize medals for their steel in 1859 and again in 1861.

What went into that steel is a secret nobody has recovered. Probably close to what Henry Taylor and Ashley Iles use now, though Henry Taylor no longer keep a full carving line.

So which one should you buy first?

Buy the English tool for the steel and add the Swiss number 11s for the profile. If the money only stretches one way, take a full size Ashley Iles and learn to rotate it, because a carver who can roll a gouge through three sweeps beats a carver with a drawer full of tools and one angle of attack. Practise on basswood where the wood will not fight the experiment.

A fuller answer about what to buy, and in what order, sits in the tools selection lesson, which ranks the makers by what I would spend money on. This page is narrower than that, and it explains why the Swiss tool keeps ending up in my hand anyway.

The rest of this course covers the bevel for hardwood, back bent tools, scrapers, how the bench is laid out and how the work is held. Sharpening has a course of its own. To watch these sweeps doing real work, look at the Byzantine acanthus or acanthus over moldings. If all of this is new, start here.

Shall we carve?