…and now for an improved knife kit.
I decided right off the bat, this would be a kit that would
be waiting for me at a location I’ll be travelling to and would contain the
things I use.
I used the case from the
previous kit as I felt if would provide protection and would travel well
I wanted a set of knifes which that were compact enough to
fit in the case as well as a supply of blades. I chose the x-acto handles #1
for fine carving, #2 for most carving, and the heavy duty handle that came with
the original kit. For blades, I equipped the kit with #11 and #16 for the small
handle, #2 and #19 for the medium handle, and chisel tip, U and V gouges for
the heavy duty handle. For the case, I also printed out some cases for some of the
blades. I also created a magnetic “pick up” tool, using an old paint brush with
a magnet glued to it, to retrieve a new blade from the cases.
A quick note: I've used x-acto and excel blades because they are thicker and less liable to break when carving. I tired of cheap thin blades breaking and not keeping an edge.
I also have need for a pin vise quite often, so I included
one in the kit along with drills and small chisels for tight areas. (Yes, the chisels
are made from old cheap mini screwdrivers.)
To fit them in the bottom of the kit, I used some rigid foam
cutting out the shapes into the foam
As for the top of the kit, I wanted to have a small cutting
mat, a small silicone mat, a diamond coated sharpening plates, sandpaper, the
drills for the pin vice, the calipers
(from the original kit), and a carving glove.
I cut the cutting mat to fit just inside the top of the kit to
keep the other items in place. To keep the mat for moving when the kit is opened,
I embedded some small screw into the top.
Now this is a traveling carving kit!
