Dear Everyone,
I make no claim to be much of a woodcarver or to know much about tools, metallurgy, gunsmithing or astrophysics. I own a small collection of good quality chisels and gouges I use in gunstocking and carving. These are mostly older Stubai and Pfeil with a smattering of antique English made chisels. I have always gotten light headed when pricing out a “complete” (whatever that is) collection of high quality chisels and gouges. Some time ago I purchased a 12 piece set of tools sold by “Schaaf tools” and thought I would share my initial impressions. I have no affiliation with them and bought these tools off of Amazon. They come from a far away land across the sea from the US (no not Germany or Switzerland) and I must admit I was skeptical as to how they would work out but the entire set cost what two “good” chisels would cost new so I said what the heck.
This is what that initial 12 piece set looked like. A mix of gouges, chisels and skews. Obviously they were made to closely resemble a well known maker of high end tools but I was curious how they would perform. I have to admit that some of the big gouges look like they would be better suited to carving a wizard out of a log but I use most of the set in gunmaking.
Some of the initial grinds were a little off of what I would have wanted and some were a lot off but I had expected to have to shape and sharpen the cutting edges. Some of the tool shafts were off center in the handles as shown but all of the handles were solid and other than sharpening the tools were all ready to work. I have heard from others that the company is very good to work with and has prompt customer service to address any issues. I cant speak to this as all my tools have been fine. I liked this set so much I got a second set of recently releases fishtail gouges pictured below:
quick image uploadWhile I have not used these much yet they should be very useful for long rifle carving and gunstocking. There is a third set as well that Id like to get but havent pulled the trigger on. So far i have been very pleased with all the pieces in both sets. I have a few small gripes but nothing major. The V- tool in the big set is steep- really steep and Im kinda scared of it. Some different angles would be nice. I would also like some smaller gouges, a little veiner and some small stuff added to the product line. I had one gouge that had some color change to it like it got too hot during grinding. Ill show the pic below. So far it seems to take and hold an edge just fine. That said all the tools seem very comparable to my old Stubai gouges as far as edge holding ability. If you look at the sets and think you could use the available shapes in your work I think you will be pleased with the quality at the price point. You can find them by searching for “Schaaf tools” on Amazon.
