Vintage wood engraving tools

Not sure since the image is small and no link.

These are excellent tools, very sharp and less than the ebay items.

Pfeil carving tools are Swiss made.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/pfeil-swiss-made-carving-tool-palm-ha...

Casey: Inky Lips Press

Check out McLains for quality tools.

https://www.imcclains.com/

engraving tools, but more for jewelry or such. would not be good for wood engraving, those shouldnt be all straight like these.

The pfeil tools linked are good- I use them for linocuts, but they arent for wood engraving

apologies for the small image, but briar press wouldn’t allow me to publish the eBay link.

I’m specifically interested in wood engraving tools, so no to the Pfeil. Maybe Mcclains, but those are pricey.

You might check out Ebay for wood engraving gravers, and gravers used for cutting details of plaques and such might serve too.

Bob

I have been engraving wood for about forty years. Mostly I carve seals (called hanko in Japanese, or yìnzhāng (印章) in Chinese) for signing my paintings and prints. I can hold these in my fist while I carve, so I’m not really messing with questions of “type high”, etc, nor can I compare my work to the real greats like Barry Moser…

I highly recommend getting your tools from Lyons. They are a small shop actively making a wide range of excellent wood engraving tools. You can shop at their storefront factory in NYC, a short walk from a #2 or #5 subway station (or buy online of course, but it is nice to look first hand). Old school, nice people.

Their tools are about $12 each, not that expensive when you consider what it costs to fill a tank of gas these days. You should start with maybe four or four or five tools: a graver, a spitsticker, a tinting tool, a round scorper and/or a square one.

If you don’t know what these are, you should get a book. I have an unbelievably large collection of books on wood engraving, (unbelievable because they all say essentially the same thing). But probably the best explanations are in Simon Brett, Wood Engraving: How to Do It, 1994.

Printing wood engravings is remarkably interesting, surprising, challenging, and fun. I use just about any wood that happens to be around on hand, but of course really fine grained wood works “better.”

It may take a while for you to discover what size tools work best for you. So give yourself a chance. It is a very personal art form.