Speedball Red Baron Unmounted Linoleum Block, 9-Inch x 12-Inch Battleship Grey

I've been carving with a variety of lino blocks, mostly softer rubber varieties and switching to this is difficult but the result is better. This is harder to carve into but is more like wood than the rubber blocks. It holds small details well. I hate cleaning up after using this because I'm used to running my rubber blocks under water in the sink and being done. Despite some of the downfalls to working with this I will buy again.

Worked perfectly for my needs. Can’t beat the price and it was fairly easy to carve into. If needed I would definitely from here again.

Main reason for the missing star is that you can almost certainly find a much better price at a local or even online art specific store. I found out afterwards I could have gotten two of the same for this price through blick if I'd looked a little longer, and was sad.It seems from reviews like the quality of these from amazon depends very much on the batch and how long it's been in the warehouse, but they were recommended to me by and in the storefront of a pro creator, and I did get a beautiful piece. Haven't printed yet, still working on the carving, but I've done several hours of that and it's going beautifully. Easy to get detail and satisfying to take away large chunks. I also splurged and got flexcut carving tools this time, I'd only worked with the speedball interchangeable one and the soft pink material before. I'm very happy to have more ergonomic grip tools while working with the harder material, I suspect my hands would get sore much faster working with the smaller tool.

This is my favorite linoleum to carve. It did not seem crumbly at all to me like some said. It is rigid enough to make small details and easy to make clean lines. I love that it doesn't have any backing aside from the burlap. I do recommend letting it dry after washing paint off, and then storing underneath heavy books to keep it flat as it will warp over time.

I tried these linoleum sheets thinking I could get a cleaner edge than with the rubber ones, but the experiment failed.

This is not too hard or too soft. Holds detail well.

Really hard to carve, i could only use the finest point from my speedball Carver pen too...the other tips would not carve into this. I wouldn't purchase this again at all. 😫. Also, I ended up poking my finger when my hand slipped and bled everywhere...I was really disgruntled at that point and just threw the whole piece away. The jute on the backside of it also made a huge mess. Epic fail all around.

It was just right for my daughter’s final project in printing. She got 4 (6x11) plates and it had a small grain, easily carved -aha didn’t have to heat it as much to carve. It was good for carving details