The Best Wood Carving Kits for Whittling reviews

Hey there, welcome back (or simply welcome if you are new here)! I’m Steve Jefferson, ready to share good mood and insightful (hopefully, at least) advice on the things that we all care about – wood carving kit. This is a hobby where you, generally, can go two ways in terms of tools. You can keep experimenting, trying new things and stay constantly looking for more, like me, or you can find something you enjoy and use it till its last breath. Both approaches are equally good and both have their disadvantages.

If you don’t try new things, you can easily miss out on something much better than what you have now – cheaper, easier in maintenance, improved versions that are more comfortable, and so on and so forth.  However, being an experimenter is never cheap – that’s for sure. It requires you to be alert at all times, keep researching the market, new inventions and what there is to try out.

I do enjoy being the researcher and reviewer since it gives me the sense of being up to date to everything going on in the wood carving world. I hope you also enjoy me being the researcher and the reviewer because it gives you insight on some things (otherwise you wouldn’t be here, I assume). And today I’d like to share some thoughts and views on what I consider the best carving kit for wood.

The best carving kit for wood traits

I have already said a couple of times that purchasing a whittling set is much more beneficial, especially for beginners, than it is to buy your tools separately. Of course, if you carve a couple times a month and don’t need anything else but one general knife – that’s another story. But I’m mostly thinking about the enthusiasts like me that spend a lot of time and resources on carving and getting my projects where I want them to be.

What makes those kits immensely better than separate purchases is the fact that with one package you receive everything you need (or, at least, all instruments that you need). It saves you time that you spend looking for something in particular and it saves you finances since mostly the kits are cheaper if you compare their cost and the cost of all instruments included in sum.

There are also incredible sets for beginners that include wood, patterns, paints and whatnot as well. Those make it easy as hell to start carving and figuring out how enjoyable this hobby is. They probably won’t allow for as much variety as you get if you get a usual set or buy tools and other supplies on your own. However, that would be a great kickstart for a newbie.

All in all, there are great advantages in getting a set of tools and this time I’m going to share my opinion on the best carving kit for wood chisel, knife and other tools included.

The best carving kit quality chip, in-round, relief and everything else

BeaverCraft S18X Deluxe Kit

Simply put, this is a gorgeous knife set. It has 8 instruments, a small stropping kit and a genuine leather pouch to finish it off with elegance. If you haven’t decided yet on which carving style you want to learn or like the most, this is your kit to go for, since it has knives for everything. Chip carving, geometric carving, spoon carving, usual whittling – it has it all. Makes it incredibly easy for you to not need to choose anymore and simply enjoy yourself while carving. And looks so nice, check for yourself!

To sum up: a generally stylish-looking and very functional set, allows you to try a lot of things, might not be for you if you stick to one particular style or approach.

BeaverCraft S18X Deluxe Kit

Poliwell 20 Pieces Knife set

This set can be considered a nice tool kit for beginners. It has 8 knives: 2 main (a general roughing one and a chip carving) and 6 detail ones, all different in shape. There are also a lot of accessories included: a stropping kit with leather strop, compound and whetstone; a couple of blade sheaths; sandpaper, safety tape, protective gloves and a canvas roll pouch to keep the tools in. Not the greatest quality of blades, to be honest, but it’s a great idea for a gift for someone to try carving since it has everything required to begin.

To sum up: a big kit with everything needed in it, a good gift idea for a beginner, wouldn’t recommend it for somebody more experienced.

Poliwell 20 Pieces Knife set

BeaverCraft S13Box

Another set that is a great pleasure to look at. Honestly, one of the things that I enjoy about BeaverCraft is their wholesomeness about their brand and the style that they present to people. This kit includes a very nice labelled box, 3 knives great for spoon carving, a basswood spoon blank and a small stropping kit as well as a booklet with instructions. It has a knife for roughing the blank out, a small detail knife and a hook knife – all in all, everything for finishing the spoon blank already included and begin your own projects.

To sum up: a smaller set for more particular uses, would look great as a gift for somebody who is only starting since it even has a wooden blank included.

BeaverCraft S13Box

OKTIME 6 Pieces Set

First of all, it’s not really a 6 piece set – there are 6 tools, yes, but there are also quite a lot of extra accessories. There’s a case for tools (kind of like a pencil case we used to have at school); a stropping kit with whetstone, polishing paste and leather strop; gloves, protective sheaths on the blades and a spoon blank. It’s quite cheap, the handles look very nice and feel so as well. There are some things to be improved: for example, the set lacks sandpaper. It compensates well with 6 knives for different styles and purposes though. Getting sandpaper separately is not that difficult

To sum up: a nice gift idea for a beginner, very stylish-looking knives but lacking in style in everything else and there are a couple of points to be improved.

OKTIME 6 Pieces Set

Flexcut 3-Knife Starter Set

Couldn’t make it without a little Flexcut set here, could I? This is a kit of 3 knives suitable for detail and chip carving most of all together with a polishing compound. Of course, it’s not as rich as the previous sets with all the accessories and all. However, if those were more set up for beginners and inexperienced carvers, you’ll notice that Flexcut is more product-oriented (than customer, that might not be the best thing after all). These three knives will be more useful for detail carving as well as chip or relief carving.

To sum up: known for their quality, Flexcut isn’t afraid to have a slightly higher price compared to the other sellers on the market, so be aware of that. Nice compact set for chip and detail carving.

Flexcut 3-Knife Starter Set

The best carving kit for wood review summary

As you can see, there are quite different sets presented here. I’ve tried to add variety and let you choose for yourself what you need more – tools only or a bigger set with accessories. In my personal opinion, they’re both good options, depending on what you need. For beginners a bigger set would be better whereas for a more experienced carver there is no need in most of the things since you already have them.

Hopefully, these reviews helped you find your best carving kit for wood Canada (or anywhere else in the world, of course). It’s been fun for me to try out and then describe various types of tools and sets (but you probably already know that). So there’s been a solution for the best carving kit for wood chisels UK as well. Roam the stores, open the links and find what you like!