These are a few of my most used tools. The third gouge from the left is my main one, and the two palm gouges do a lot of the work of scroll carving. I'd love to have a few larger palm gouges, since they are so handy for that kind of work.
The large plane is what I use for joining the halves of the plates. It is a bit small for the job, but until I can get the sole of my old Stanley 22" jointer surface ground I have to use it. So far it has done an adequate job, that I've been able to touch up with some careful sanding.
The black rectangular objects are flexible scrapers that I like quite a bit. the ovoid object with the hole in it is also a scraper which is one of several I sawed out of a larger, rectangular Stanley cabinet scraper. I use it mainly for the channel around the edges.
The knives are Rick Bütz carving knives from Woodcraft. After a bit of shaping and sharpening they take a fantastic edge which I maintain by stropping often and sharpening occasionally.
This is the jig I use to hold the plates while I work on them. There is soft leather underneath, and there is a fiddle shaped hole in the plywood so I can work on the inside of the plate also.
The outlines in both pictures are all straight, but there is a slight barrel distortion cause by the wide angle lens that I used.
