INCLY Rock Pick Kit: An Honest Review

I will tell you straight: the INCLY Rock Pick Kit is the kit I reach for on most day trips now, but it took me a while to get there. When I first opened the box, I had the same reaction a lot of people have. Fifteen pieces for that price, and a couple of them looked like they would bend the first time I really leaned on them. I have been tumbling rocks in my garage for about twelve years and I have broken more cheap tools than I care to count, so I do not trust a kit until it has been through a few hard mornings. This is the honest version of that test, including the parts that annoyed me. I am not going to tell you this is the last rock hammer you will ever buy, because it is not. What I can tell you is what survived a year of collecting in the desert around Tucson, what did not, and what I would do differently if I were starting over.

I used the kit through a full collecting season around Tucson, mostly in creek beds and desert washes, plus a few long days at the Tucson gem show where I mostly carried it for the smaller tools. My dog Biscuit, a 9-year-old red heeler mix, supervised from the blanket in the garage. He hates loud rattling noises, so anything that gets knocked around in the truck bed comes back inside and gets inspected on the workbench. That is how I noticed a few things the listing does not mention. The first trip was a Saturday in early March, out near the Rincon Mountains, and the kit came home with a chipped zipper pull and a chisel that had rolled under the truck seat. That is the kind of detail you only learn by actually using the thing.

How I've Used It

I have used the INCLY kit on maybe twenty collecting trips over the last year. That includes breaking open agate nodules in a dry wash near the Rincons, prying out a piece of petrified wood that was half buried in a bank, and a lot of light work sorting through gravel bars. The hammer gets the most use. The chisels get a fair amount. The bag gets used every single time, because it is the piece that keeps the rest of the kit from rattling around in the truck. One morning in April I spent a solid three hours cracking open nodules along a wash about forty minutes east of town. I set up on a flat slab of basalt, laid the tools out on a canvas cloth, and worked through maybe thirty rocks. The hammer came through that morning without a single loose part, and the two large chisels took everything I put against them. That is the kind of day that tells you whether a tool is worth keeping.

For the kind of collecting most people actually do, which is cracking open rocks that are already loose and prying at things that are partially exposed, this kit is enough. It is not a professional geologist's set and it does not pretend to be. But for a hobbyist who wants one box that covers most jobs, it is hard to beat the convenience. I will say this about the weight: the whole bag, tools and all, is somewhere around six or seven pounds, which is light enough to carry all day without thinking about it. I have carried heavier single hammers than that. When I walk a wash, the kit rides on my hip or gets slung over one shoulder, and I forget it is there until I need it.

The one thing I would warn people about before they buy: the kit assumes you know how to use a rock hammer. There is no instruction sheet worth reading, just a few pictures on the box. If you are brand new, spend an hour watching somebody who knows what they are doing, and wear the goggles. The goggles are not optional. I have had a chip of rhyolite bounce off my cheek hard enough to leave a mark, and I was wearing them. The mark lasted three days. I do not want to think about what it would have done to an eye. That is the part of the kit nobody mentions in the reviews.

What the Listing Does Not Tell You

The listing says 15 pieces and that is accurate, but it is also a little generous. Four of the pieces are the same chisel in different widths, and two of the tools are small enough that I rarely use them. The things that matter are the hammer, the two larger chisels, the goggles, and the bag. If you count it that way, you are really buying a four-piece kit with extras. That is fine. The price is still right. But I would rather see the listing say what the extras are for. The widest chisel has a cutting edge of about an inch, the middle one is roughly half that, and the narrowest is a quarter of an inch at best. That sounds like a small difference until you are trying to split a thin seam in a piece of jasper, where the narrow one earns its place.

The second thing nobody tells you is that the handles on the smaller chisels are smooth metal. After an hour of hammering, your hand gets tired and the chisel wants to rotate in your grip. I wrapped the two chisels I use most with a couple of layers of hockey tape and that fixed it completely. That is a five-minute fix and I do not hold it against the kit, but I wish I had known to do it before the first trip instead of after. I tried a leather work glove first, the kind with the fingers cut off, and it helped a little but not enough. The tape works better because it stays where you put it and it gives you a soft surface to grip when the sun is up and your hands are sweating.

The third thing is the bag. It is the cheapest part of the kit and it shows. The zipper works fine for a season, but the fabric is thin and the bottom edge is already showing wear where it sits on the ground. I am not gentle with equipment and I did not expect the bag to last forever. I just want people to know that the bag is a carrying case, not a piece of field gear. When it goes, a canvas tool roll will do the job better. I know this because I already had to make that switch. The zipper pull chipped on the first trip, and by midsummer the bottom seam had started to fray where the hammer rested against it. I moved everything into a canvas roll from the hardware store and I have not looked back.

The Hammer Is the Star

The hammer is the reason I would buy this kit again. The head is solid, the weight is right for cracking open rocks without wearing out your wrist, and the handle has a comfortable grip that does not slip when your hands are sweaty. I have used it to break open dozens of rocks and it has not chipped, bent, or loosened. For the money, it is a genuinely good hammer. The head runs somewhere around two pounds, which is the sweet spot for this kind of work. Heavy enough to crack a decent-sized nodule in one or two strikes, light enough that you can swing it all afternoon. I have owned hammers with more expensive names on them that did not balance as well as this one does.

The chisels are decent too, especially the two larger ones. They hold an edge reasonably well and they take a beating. The smaller ones are less useful for real work, but they are fine for detail work on soft material. If you are mostly cracking open agates and quartz, the hammer plus the two large chisels will cover ninety percent of what you do. One Sunday last spring I found a chunk of chalcedony about the size of a grapefruit, and I was sure it had a pocket of crystals inside. The hammer opened it on the third strike, clean as could be, and the wide chisel did the trimming. That is the kind of morning that makes you glad you brought the right tools.

One honest note: the chisels are not the kind of steel that will hold an edge for years of heavy use. They are good enough for a hobbyist, and they are cheap enough to replace when they dull. That is the tradeoff you are making at this price. I would rather buy a kit like this and replace the chisels every couple of years than spend three times as much on a single hammer I am afraid to drop. I did drop this one once, from about waist height onto the concrete floor of the garage. It landed on the head, and the only damage was a small ding in the concrete. I checked the head for cracks the next morning and found nothing.

The hammer is the reason I would buy this kit again. I have used it to break open dozens of rocks and it has not chipped, bent, or loosened.

What I Would Replace First

If you buy the INCLY kit, plan to replace the bag first. It is the weakest link and it will not survive a couple of seasons of hard use. In my case it made it about fourteen trips before the zipper started catching, and the bottom seam let go a few weeks later. The second thing I would replace is the small chisels, but only if you find yourself doing detail work. The hammer and the two large chisels are keepers. I also found myself reaching for a wider chisel than the kit provides, so I added a three-quarter-inch masonry chisel from the hardware store. It does not fit the canvas bag's pockets the way the others do, but it does the work.

I also added a small pry bar to my kit, which is not included. That is not a criticism of INCLY. A pry bar is a personal tool and everyone has a different favorite. But if you are collecting in areas with a lot of exposed rock, you will want one. The kit covers the basics; the pry bar covers the situations where you need a little more leverage. Mine is about a foot and a half long with a flattened end, and it has saved me more times than I can count when a piece of petrified wood was wedged into a bank. Between the pry bar, the tape on the chisels, and the replacement bag, the kit is better set up than it was the day it arrived. That is the whole idea.

Who This Is For

This kit is for the weekend rockhound who wants one box that covers most jobs and does not want to spend a fortune on tools they might use twice a year. It is also great for a beginner who is just getting into rock tumbling and needs a basic set to start collecting. The price is low enough that you will not feel bad about upgrading individual pieces later. If you are the kind of person who tinkers, the way I do, you will enjoy the process of making the kit your own. A starter kit is a place to begin, not a place to stop.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you are a serious collector who spends every weekend in the field and needs professional-grade tools. You will replace most of the kit within a year and you would be better off buying a single good hammer and a couple of good chisels. Skip it too if you are buying it for a child, unless you plan to supervise closely. The tools are sharp and the goggles only protect the eyes, not the fingers. And skip it if you are the kind of person who gets annoyed by having to fix things out of the box. This kit needs a little personal attention before it is truly comfortable to use. That is not a flaw, it is just the truth about a kit at this price.

The Bottom Line

The INCLY Rock Pick Kit is an honest value. It is not the best tool I own, but it is the one I grab most often because it is all in one place and it works. The hammer is genuinely good, the chisels are good enough, the bag is weak, and the price is right. For a hobbyist who wants to start collecting without overthinking the gear, this is a sensible buy. Just plan to spend a little time making it your own: tape the chisel handles, add a pry bar, and start shopping for a better bag before the first one wears out. Do that, and this kit will carry you through your first couple of years of collecting.