Reply To: Henry Taylor old/vintage woodcarving tools
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Well, you are very lucky. That looks to be a decent and very usable set of tools. From the lengths of some of the blades, well used and from the appearance, well cared for. Apart from a few ‘exotic’ curved shapes, most are the kind of gouges that are used every day.
it’s hard to tell the age; Taylor have been (still are, fortunately) in business for a long time. The use of the word ‘England’ etc in the name certainly pre-dates the EEC and may very well be 1950s or even pre-war. There’s a bit of research needed there on the British rules for marking items in a restricted trade era.
The handles appear to be user-made. I say this because I bought most of my Taylor tools unhandled and made my own. They have octagonal sections which is very useful in preventing them rolling off the bench. Some are unhandled. There is a method of work which uses the tapered shank above the bolster to refine its own hole from a drilled blank but it’s a little complicated…. that’s for later.
Because they are made in Sheffield, they will conform to the ‘Sheffield List’ of widths and radii. You’ll see a number stamped on each one and this denotes the sweep (or radius). The Sheffield list is different to the modern Continental sweeps.
More info? I learned with a carver called Chris Pye about 25 years ago. He now has a subscription web-site, like Paul Sellers, plus a few free films on You-Tube.
Your first big task if you are serious is learning to sharpen. Not easy and will involve you in some initial expanse in buying stones etc. Chris Pye also has an excellent book on sharpening techniques but you may have to search it out……
If you visit his web-site, he has a PDF of the Sheffield List of sweeps that you can down-load and print off to work out and list which gouges you already have.
Good luck and let us all know how you get on.