Reviews

Powered carving

It was almost closing time on the last day of the Weald wood Fair 2000. It had been a terrible day, I'd been suffering with a severe hangover for most of it. So I decided that I needed cheering up, I whizzed round the show to see what was on offer. Well 20 minutes later and a bit of attempted bartering, I returned to our stall clutching a Bosch power carver kit and £54 the lighter. Well didn't think much more about it for a couple of weeks, then one sunny Sunday afternoon, I decided it was about time I had a play with my new toy. I've seen these tools in action before, even tried them at woodworking shows, but they often as not let you try them on lime and that's no real test. Well as many of you know I carve the odd wood spirit, and I had a part finished one in the back garden. I had been using my Bosch router with all the gubbings taken off and a Kutzal burr in it's collet. So everything was nicely rounded and needed finer detailing. I thought good time to try out the power carver. Well I didn't expect much, the woodspirit in question was in Ash and I'd read in Woodcarver magazine that the machine struggled on harder woods. I was pleasantly surprised at the way it cut the hair and beard but it did struggle across the end grain. Well I wasn't too disappointed the tool had worked to expectations. Fastforward to the Axminster Power tool show and again you find me feeling a bit worse for wear, although it's illness this time. I'd been busy saving my money to go to the show so I was going even if they had to carry me. After the preliminaries it was time to get down to business and decided who was taking my money. I'd seen the write up in Woodcarver magazine a short while previous reviewing the Flexcut tools for the Bosch power carver and decided to head over to the Flexcut stall.

My intention had been to try out the tools and maybe get one or two if I liked them. Well after some time talking to Peter Berry about the tools and trying them out I left them promising to return. I meandered round the show until I got to the Tool shop stand. Well the rest is history, I'm now the proud owner of the boxed set of 20 blades (pictured) for my power carver.Again I didn't really think much more about them on my return home. In fact it was about three weeks later that I finally opened the box to try them out. Again I tried them out on the Ash woodspirit, having left him alone due to the illness.

The blades fit into the Bosch carver by way of an adapter that the blades click into. Also available (separately) is a handle that takes the blades in the same way, so you can use them in a power cut! And a nice touch was the Flexcut band aid dispenser (sweet). I tried several of the blades out in much the same way as previous and was encouraged by the increase in performance over the standard tools. The Flexcut blades cut easily on the hair and beard and there was only a slight indication of struggling on the end grain. This could well be down to the level of sharpness that comes with the flexcut blades and the different characteristics of the steel. I even let the wife have a go, not too much mind, but enough for her to say how easy it was. And this was my only gripe, there was no real feed back, you know when you've hit a hard bit with a hand tool, but not so with power. I guess I'll get used to it. Well I'm looking forward to using my new tools again soon, but now that the winter weather has drawn in I find it hard to get in the shed... due to garden furniture! New shed please, I need more space............. oh go on. (Pleading never works does it!)