Wood Carving Tools: Knives, Gouges, V-Tools and How They Are Sized

Hand carving needs fewer tools than most people expect. A knife alone will carve small figures in the round — the craft usually called whittling. Relief panels, lettering and larger work add gouges, which cut a curved channel, and a V-tool, which cuts a sharp-bottomed line. Rasps and rifflers shape and smooth curves the edge tools have roughed out, and are covered in rasps and files.

A gouge is named by two figures: its sweep, the curve of the edge, and its width. The Swiss system writes them together, so a 7/14 is a sweep 7 gouge 14 mm wide. A low number is flat, with 1 a flat chisel, and the curve deepens as the number rises.

The catch is that the numbers belong to each maker. As the carver Peter Follansbee puts it, one maker's system does not necessarily line up with another's: an English number 7 might not agree with a Swiss 7, and old tools often carry no number at all. So match gouges by the shape of the edge — most makers publish profile charts drawn at full size — and by width, rather than by the number alone. The pages that follow give no sweep numbers for that reason.

Morakniv's advice on carving knives is about length and thickness: short, thin, narrow blades for fine detail, and longer, slightly thicker ones for more powerful cuts and all-round use. Its own figures show the range — and that even one maker's pages can disagree.

Steel matters for upkeep more than for cutting. Morakniv describes its carbon steel as easy to sharpen but rusting if neglected, and its stainless steel as low-maintenance and a good choice for beginners. For a first knife it also suggests a slightly larger grip, preferably with a finger guard. Comparing tools to buy is the subject of how to choose carving tools.

Flexcut divides its gouges and V-tools into two kinds. Palm tools are short, so the edge sits close to the controlling hand; they are held in one hand while the other holds the work, and with wider profiles they can carve pieces up to 12 to 15 in. Mallet tools are longer and can be pushed through a lot of waste or struck, for architectural details and furniture — and Flexcut says that kind of work needs a very stable surface and a clamping system. A carver's mallet is described in the mallet guide.

Morakniv's point that a carving-sharp edge is safer is the reason upkeep matters: a dull edge needs force, and force is what makes a tool slip. Flexcut's routine is to strop rather than return to stones — a leather or composite strop charged with polishing compound, worked on both the outside and the inside of the edge, with the bevel held as flat on the strop as possible so it does not round over, and a gouge rolled as it is pulled so the whole curve is polished. It gives no schedule: strop when the tool starts to drag in the cut. Grinding a damaged edge back is a different job; bench chisels are covered in sharpening chisels and plane irons.

The hand most exposed is the one holding the wood, because it sits near the path the edge takes if it slips, and the safest answer is not to hold the wood at all: Woodcarving Illustrated's staff call clamping the work in a holding device, with both hands gripping the tool, the safest approach. A bench vise or a clamp does that for relief panels; knife work in the hand cannot always be clamped, which is where protection comes in.

• A carving glove on the holding hand. It can stop a slicing cut, but no glove prevents every injury, and punctures from a knife point or a small gouge get through.
• A thumb guard for paring cuts, where the knife is drawn towards the thumb. Many carvers use leather ones; vet wrap is not cut resistant and is no substitute.
• A glove's rating. Gloves sold in North America may carry an ANSI/ISEA 105 cut level from A1 to A9; puncture resistance is tested separately, so a high cut level says nothing about points.

Rotary tools and angle grinders are also sold for carving. They are not covered on these pages: a rotary tool's speed range and the speed each bit may run at are set by that tool's and that bit's own manuals, not by any general figure. One accessory is singled out here because a regulator has: the UK's Office for Product Safety and Standards reported a chain-type wood carving disc for angle grinders as a serious risk of injury or death, not designed to be used with an angle grinder, with injuries reported from kickback when the disc grips the wood.

• Wood carving for beginners — woods to carve, reading the grain, the basic cuts and holding the work.
• Pyrography — burning designs into wood with a heated point: machines, heat, wood and fumes.
• Wood carving projects — a chip-carved rosette and a relief-carved leaf panel.
• Beginner wood carving patterns — a heart token and a songbird, knife only.
• How to choose carving tools — knives, gouges, sets and kits, by specification.
• Axes and adzes — carving axes, hatchets and adzes: grinds, handles and care.
• Rasps and files — shaping and smoothing after the edge tools.