Schaaf Wood Carving ToolsKnife Kit | Wood Carving Kit Includes Detail Whittling Knife, Sloyd Carving Knife, Spoon Carving Knife, Basswood Carving Blocks, Strop and Learning Material for Beginners

I have been carving for over forty years and have won a couple of world championships for bird carving. I help teach carving classes for wounded vets. In my quest for a good carving knife for these classes we have used Pheil, Murphy and Flextool knives. I have not been happy with the handles of any of these knives. Problems with handles included too small diameter, sharp edges, and just not being as comfortable for long periods of use as my personal handles. I just received the new Schaaf 3-knife set. I have been very pleased with the handles on these knives. And my wife found them comfortable to use with her smaller hands.The knives arrived very sharp, and the included small strop and compound makes it easy to keep a keen edge. I like that the carrying pouch has a place to store the strop and compound. It's a good take along carving set. The steel is very good and holds an edge well.This beginners' set is a good addition to the Schaaf Tool lineup. I will be using it in future carving classes for the vets.

This is a great little kit to get you started in the hobby and at a very reasonable price. I carved up a spoon the first night I had it using the included blank (though “cheated” a bit by using a drill bit to remove some material in the spoon cup area).*PROS:—Reasonable price—Nice sharpness out of the box on all knives (but as with nearly all factory knives you buy, don’t judge them until you sharpen them)—Strop and sharpening compound are quality additions—Nice, durable canvas roll—Comfortable handles that work in large hands*CONS—Included wood blanks are deceptively small, but still a bonus—Knife roll closes with a handy elastic cord, but will likely stretch over time and not really for secure closure—Plastic blade guards are tool small and easily lost. Wish they were more robust.OVERALL: No buyer’s remorse here. These knives are going up on the tool wall in my workshop and are worth the price of the kit alone.

UPDATE: Schaaf tools refunded me the cost of my kit. I didn't ask for a refund and did not contact them about a refund or my review. Their customer service is phenomenal and I WOULD NOT hesitate to buy this kit again. I was able to correct the issues I had with the two knives that had problems in my kit on a worksharp 3000 sharpener grinding out the defects and re-sharpening. They stand by their product, and for that I'm changing it from a 2 star review to 4 stars. I've been carving for 25 years, i have a ton of carving tools and I have all of the other sets by Schaaf so I wanted to give this one a try and see how it compares to the other beginner sets on the market. It came with two knives, a hook knife, some blocks of wood, a small spoon blank, finger tape, leather strop and polishing compound.Let's start with the good. The handles are great. Absolutely love them. Nice and large, easy to hold and comfortable. By far my favorite handles over all the other brands. The finger tape is an excellent addition as well as the basswood blocks. It's the carving tools themselves where I think this set falls short.Let's start with the detail carving knife. By far my favorite detail carver out of all the other brands i own. I love this knife. The length of the blade coupled with the length of the handle are a perfect fit for my hands. It's sharp out of the box, but could use some honing. The sloyd knife in my set came with a warp in the tip on the knife (hopefully it shows in the pics). Again, blade length and handle length are perfect to me, nice thick spine on the knife. It's sharp, but it's got a rough grind, it also could use a good sharpening and polishing. You would have to grind this out, it's not something that's going to be fixed with the strop.The hook knife in my set was the biggest disappointment. The blade on mine was dinged and dented and unusable as is (see pics). I'd have to spend some time with sharpening stones to get this back to usable condition.The strop seems to be a piece of rawhide with a piece of pleather laminated to it. I found whatever was laminated on top to be extremely soft, unlike a top grain piece of leather. The rawhide gives it stiffness, but the top is kind of spongy.For $20 it's an incredible value. How do you even manufacture a set like this for that price? Like i said, based on the other reviews, I'm sure the set i got just had some issues. If you're experienced in carving tools you may be able to work past those issues because of the price.

I have always wanted to learn to carve wooden spoons. This set is great for beginners. This set is wonderful. Very sharp out of the box and Very comfortable to use. The pouch they come in is handy to take with you. I have not had to sharpen them since I got them. I’ve been using them for about a month. I’m not sure on how to sharpen yet but Schaaf has a video on their website.

Mostly great. Conformable to hold and use, good shape to the handles. Blades sharp to begin with and as a first time spoon carver I've been mostly impressed. My biggest concern is with the hook knife which doesn't seem to carve like this videos I see on YouTube.Would recommend as a starter set, with reservations.