By L.S. Irish
The bench knife has a thin blade that will be about 1 3/4 inches to 3 inches long, and tapers to a point at the tip of the blade. The entire straight faced edge of the blade is sharpened to provide you with an ability to cut lines into the wood and to whittle away long slivers of excess material. Short blades are usually referred to as bench knifes where a longer style blade will be called a Sloyd knife. Bench knife styles are also marketed under the names of ‘detail knives’, ‘whittling knifes’, and ‘straight knives’. Of all the tools that you will purchase, this one is the main stay of your kit and it is worth the investment for any beginner to begin with an excellent quality of blade. There are many fine examples of detailed carving that are done using only the bench knife.
There are many specialty carving tools that have been developed over the years. For undercuts and removing the background areas in tight corners you might want a dog-leg skew. There are also bent gouges, backbend gouges, spoonbit, and fishtails available for your use. As your craft is developed, like most carvers, you tool kit will increase with a variety or knife shapes. Tools also come in a variety of widths from the micro carvers that are used for very fine detail and miniature works to the large fish tail gouges and awls that remove great quantities of wood with one stroke.
Each tool creates it’s own pattern of stroke in the wood. Use a scrap of softwood to practice and explore each of your new knifes. Remember also that each individual blade style can create a variety of strokes depending on the depth of the cut and the angle of the blade entry into the wood. A c-curve gouge will make a beautiful tear dropped shape stroke that both tapers into the cut and then back to the surface of the wood. Yet if you hold it upright at a very slight angle and push into the carving you can make fish and dragon scales with the blades imprint.
From your left to your right in the image above the patterns have been made with the following tools; bench knife, chisel or skew chisel, gouge, v-gouge or v-point chisel, and u-gouge or veining tool.
Basic Carving Tools
Carving Tools Close-Up
The Beginner’s Tool Kit
Bracing Table for Relief Carving
Your First Carving
Basics to Landscape Relief Carving
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