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Part of The linocut shortlist: projects worth cutting before you buy more gear
Get the linocut buying order right before your first cut in 2027
A buying order for relief printing, what a starter kit leaves out, and how to read sale pricing and tool condition claims without overpaying.
What to take away
- Block, gouge, brayer, ink, paper. Buy in that order and stop when the money runs out.
- Buy the block material that matches the project, not the one on offer.
- A tool in poor condition is not a bargain. Sharpening a badly ground gouge takes longer than earning the price difference.
- Comparison prices on packaging are regulated claims, and a former price that was never charged is not a saving.
The first five purchases
- Block material.Battleship gray linoleum for detail, softcut rubber for speed, plywood for grain. One sheet, cut into small pieces.
- Two gouges.A medium U for clearing and a fine V for line. Nothing else earns its place yet.
- One brayer.As wide as the block, medium firmness.
- One tube or tin of ink.Black, in the base you have cleanup for.
- Paper.Two or three sheets of something good, and a stack of newsprint for proofing.
That set prints every project on our shortlist of linocut projects except the largest, and it costs less than most boxed kits.
What starter kits leave out
Kits typically include a plastic-handled tool with interchangeable blades, a small brayer, a tiny block and a sample of ink. What they leave out is the sharpening equipment, a bench hook, and enough paper to fail on.
The tool blades in kits are frequently stamped rather than forged, which means they can be honed but not truly sharpened. That is workable for a first afternoon and frustrating by the third session.
Buying used solves part of this, with a caution. The workplace principle that an employer is responsible for the safe condition of tools, including tools an employee brings, translates neatly to a secondhand purchase: the condition of the tool is your problem the moment it arrives. Check the ferrule, the handle and the bevel before you check the price.
Reading a sale price honestly
Art supply pricing leans on comparison. The Federal Trade Commission's guides against deceptive pricing address exactly this pattern: a former price used for comparison should be a genuine price at which the article was offered for a reasonably substantial period, not an inflated figure invented to make a reduction look larger.
Applied to a checkout page, that means treating a list price you have never seen charged as decoration. Compare across sellers on the current price and the unit size, and ignore the crossed-out number entirely.
What to compare on
- Linoleum
- Thickness and area
- Gouge
- Steel type and blade width
- Brayer
- Roller width and durometer
- Ink
- Grams, not tube length
- Paper
- Weight and sheet count
Common trap
- Linoleum
- Price per sheet with different sizes
- Gouge
- Sets counted as one item
- Brayer
- Handle style sold as a feature
- Ink
- Student grade priced near artist grade
- Paper
- Pads with a heavy cover sheet counted in
Where the second wave of money goes
Once the first five items are working, the useful additions are a bench hook, a sharpening stone or strop, a second brayer in a different width, and better paper. Our guide to pricing supplies and working out cost per print shows how quickly paper overtakes everything else once you print regularly.
