BeaverCraft Wood Carving Tools Kit S14x Deluxe

 

It has been a while since my last post. Since then, I’ve spent plenty of time gardening, riding my bike and listening to a few audible books. The one thing that I’ve really stuck with since then is whittling and wood carving. I honestly say it’s been the most fun I’ve had in a while for a particular hobby.

                Now, if you read any reddit subreddit about whittling and wood carving, they always recommend getting some top-quality knives. The problem with anything of extremely high-quality item is the cost. While a good quality item will last you a long time, it doesn’t put a high cost of entry into hobby. What if you don’t end up liking the hobby? What if you can’t return the object?

                I did some research and found a brand of knife that wasn’t too expensive. I found some people recommend BeaverCraft tools. I decided to give the set a try. BeaverCraft has several tool Kit options with a price range from $50 dollars to 280. I went with the BeaverCraft Wood Spoon Carving Tools Kit S14x Deluxe.

                This toolkit comes with three tools, Sloyd wood Carving Knife, Hook knife, and gouge. The kit also comes with a new carrying case, leather strop with polishing compound. I have to say the carrying case makes things easy to store. You can pick up your own copy of the toolkit from amazon. I also used an old carbon board box to store the case and wood blocks together.

                Thankfully, one of the trees on my property is a Linden (Tilia Americana) or a basswood. This means whenever I trim the tree, I can get some easy to carve wood. The major downsize is that I’ll never get a large block without cutting down the entire tree. Evening with the tree, I still bought a few packages of carving blocks from Michaels and Joann’s before it closes. I have to say those precut blocks do make it easier to start a project.

Of all of the tools, the Sloyd knife has probably seen the most action. I used the Sloyd to carve up several pieces of wood, strip bark from fallen branches, carve a walking stick and small figurines. I have to say I found it extremely relaxing and easy with how the Sloyd knife was able to cut the wood. It made the entire process more enjoyable. Though, it led me to an issue of finishing my projects. I still don’t know whether I should paint the objects or use oil.

As for the other tools, I honestly haven’t found a need yet for the gouge, but the hook knife was useful for removing wood. I wish I could say I used it to whittle/carve a spoon, but I just haven’t had the time for it yet. Instead, I’ve tried carving birds, a standing bear, a duck and a pig. I hate to say it, but I think my pig may look more like a dog than a pig.

Now, an added benefit of Beavercraft tools, Beavercraft has over 150 carving templates and tutorials on their website. They show varies methods of carving gnomes, animals, and evening Mario. I’m extremely interested in trying out a few of these carving templates. I’m in particular interesting in trying to carve a gnome or a figurine. I think it could be particular fun leaving little carved figurines for people to find.

                Now, the toolkit was definitely worth the money I spent on it. I got probably a hundred hours of entertainment and enjoyable crafts. I would definitely recommend the kit to anyone interesting in learning to wood carve or whittle. I have to say I liked the kit so much that I also bought two additional kits from Beavercraft. I bought beavercraft Wood Carving Knife Kit and the BeaverCraft Wood Carving Gouges and Chisels Kit. I have yet to open the boxes yet but I’m looking forward to finally making a spoon and finally carving a gnome like in this tutorial from beaverCraft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYDt1tQa3fc

A review eBook this time

 

Surprisingly, I was actually able to finish an actual eBook this week. It was All for One LitRPG by Jyorin Pegaz. I honestly have to say that I love the cover of the book. It shows a picture of a werewolf howling into the night. I honestly got the book because it feels like most books about werewolves are romance novels instead of action or true fantasy stories.

The novel starts off with one of the more common tropes in LitRPGs. The main character dies on Earth and is reincarnated on a different work. Once the main character is in the new world, things are a bit different for our main character. For one, the main character is actually one of the weakest people around him. He doesn’t start off especially gifted or has a unique ability. He also experiences nightmares from his death on Earth. I honestly have to say that it is surprising that his experiences on Earth actually have an effect on his new life. Most of LitRPGs take place after he is forced from his home.

While he is traveling, he is attacked by a werewolf and gets his System. From there it gets interesting. For one, he gets to see stats of levels of the people around him. This is one of my biggest gripes about the novel. Everyone has huge stat numbers in the thousands and hit points in the hundreds of thousands. Yet, with these statistics, creates and people are easily killed.

Eventually, he gets evening more power. Every skill that he learns increases his overall stats, a magical crafting studio and evening gets rid of the negative traits of the werewolf such as their aversion to silver. He quickly rises to power and becomes a threat pretty quickly. I honestly wish it was drawn out more. The novel quickly goes through its weak phase and passes through the academy trope within a few days. Normally, most novels spend a few months or years at the academy training. However, our main character is down with the academy in about a week. The interesting part is that he isn’t even the strongest at the academy. The strongest student also suffered from a reincarnation except he is from this world. He is reliving his life again after he died in the future. I honestly was a bit surprised that there was another person like him in this world. I honestly can’t wait to read the next one.

Overall, if you like LitRPGs and fantasy novels, you’ll probably like this novel. So, please make sure you give it a try. Till next time.

A Review of another audio novel.

 

A New age of Man(A Realms Novel) by D.A Putman. The story is a classic trope of the son of the blacksmith getting special powers to become one of the heroes of the realm. An interesting point to the story is the background of how people receive their power. They are granted power by patron which determines their power set. Each power set specializes in a particular group. For example, there are mages, warriors, healers and rogues/intelligence. It is basically like a blessing from a god.

I guess the best feature of the novel is the hero’s personal powerset. Normally, I would have expected to the main character to be a spell weaving or a sword swinging hero. Instead of the usually fantasy tropes, the author decides to give him a rogue skill set. So, we see the hero sneaking around, setting traps, hiding in shadows and basically learning to be spy. I have to say that it quite interesting to me. However, it seems that our hero never had any setbacks. Every time he was challenge to a new issue, he would just spend a little more time slowly learning the process. No matter what, he always overcomes the challenge. I kind of wished he would have failed dramatically at one point.

Now, most of book takes place in the school/academy for the people with the talents. I honestly felt the training situations should have been drawn out more but our lovely main character was prodigy like no other. He redefine the course training criteria because he cross trained some skills with his friends which apparently never happened before. It caused the academy to follow his training idea which I find to be completely ridiculous. You would think  that the academy has been around for hundreds of years would know how to expose students to other training methods. It isn’t hard concept but it completely ignored by the staff.

Not long after being at the academy, he is advance early to the third year of course work and he is able to take missions. On his first mission, he quickly discovers the issue that has been plaguing the country for over a year. The character that only has a year or so experience finds the cause of the problem and particularly solves it single handedly. You would think his instructors with decades of experience would be the ones to do it. But of course, it all falls on the main character.

So, if you like a novel where the main character is able to solve everything and never truly suffers a defeat, then the novel is definitely for you. I have to say the action sequences were enjoyable but I just wish the novel wasn’t so predictable. Overall, I think I will probably read the second of the series just to see where the story goes from here. Till next time.