spokeshave tuneup?

[Robert G Brown]

"As far as fettling, clean off the dirt and grim, sharpen the blade" That has been my experience with most vintage spoke shaves. The LV and LN ones came sharp and ready. I just gave their blades a final honing. Now as for the Chinese ones that I paid $1.99 each for brand new, those needed a major overhaul. But they taught me what to look for in the 30 plus spoke shaves I acquired after them.

[Daniel Rode]

I was able to find a No 151 the appears to be in very good shape. It has a red/orange cap and the No. 151 cast on the back is plain, so it's a type 5 or type 6. I might have preferred an earlier model but it cost me $13.50, so I'm out less than a new Stanley that I know is roughly cast and poorly machined.

The label on the plane body reads made in England which is encouraging but it's still possible the body was cast in China or India and may not be machined as well. Maybe it'll be nice right off or maybe I'll need to do some work. I'll find out next week when it arrives.

Thanks for all the tips and advice.

[Federico Mena Quintero]

Stanley makes a flat bottom spokeshave (IIRC model 12-951). It's inexpensive and resembles the #151 but I'm told the bed casting is typically painted and rough making the tool perform poorly. Is this a tool I could tune up without too much trouble? File the bed flat, lap the sole, sharpen the blade and put it to work?

I have a cheap spokeshave, Truper brand (the ubiquitous cheap tools in Mexico) that seems identical to the 12-951, and after doing exactly the kind of fettling you mentioned, it worked much better than out of the box. I'm happy with it.

The contact surfaces are so small (bed and sole) that it's easy to get them flat.

(And my 6yo daughter *LOVES* the spokeshave! It is a very easy tool for her. "Daddy, I want to make another sword...")

[Pete Hotard]

I have the new Stanley that you were asking about in your original post. Got it at first to try my hand at spoon carving....out of the box it worked ok, up to my expectations at the time, but now, maybe 6 months later I realize how poorly it was working. I read several of those articles listed and spent a morning fettling mine and am amazed at the difference in operation. I filed the bed flat, sanded all of the paint and imperfections off of the back of the cap. Honed a sharp bevel on the top of the cap just to open up the throat a little bit. Lapped the sole, lapped the back of the blade and honed a 30 deg bevel. Now it takes silky smooth shavings with very occasional tear out.

I probably put way too much effort into a cheap tool, but I somewhat enjoy tuning up tools that others may think are only good for paper weights. When I first started buying hand tools last year, I didn't have the money for nice planes or chisels. I bought a #4 smoother from my locally owned ACE hardware. Worked well out of the box but as my skills have improved I have been able to tune it up to meet my standards. The only thing I hate about it is the junky chrome blade it came with. Will definitely buy a new plane before I change the blade in this one, but I may have to order a Hock blade just to see how nice I can get this thing running...

[Jim Koepke]

I was able to find a No 151 the appears to be in very good shape. It has a red/orange cap and the No. 151 cast on the back is plain, so it's a type 5 or type 6. I might have preferred an earlier model but it cost me $13.50, so I'm out less than a new Stanley that I know is roughly cast and poorly machined.

The label on the plane body reads made in England which is encouraging but it's still possible the body was cast in China or India and may not be machined as well. Maybe it'll be nice right off or maybe I'll need to do some work. I'll find out next week when it arrives.

Thanks for all the tips and advice.

Are you able to post pictures?

Hope to be at least hearing from you soon.

jtk

[Tony Zaffuto]

Found it - it was the October 2002 issue, (#158) it's titled "Soup Up Your Spokeshave" and it's by Brian Boggs. It also shows up in a couple of Taunton handplane books - if you search "Soup Up Your Spokeshave" and "Brian Boggs" in Google, I'm getting a Google Books preview of the Taunton "Working With Handplanes" book, that lets me read most of the article. (Page 97 is telling me it's not part of the preview.)

I used this article on a Kunz chamfer shave (wings detach so the shave acts as a normal shave). Before the "tune up", the Kunz wasn't worth a crap. After wards as a regular shave, it was great: I made my own A2 blade and tightened the mouth with Bogg's epoxy method. I also made a new chip breaker, ala Boggs. I did give the shave away, because it was bought for use as a chamfer shave and nothing could be done to overcome the poor castings and mating surfaces of the chamfer wings.

I would highly recommend following the Boggs article.

[Daniel Rode]

I won't have pictures of my own until it arrives next week. The eBay listing had a number of pictures, though. It was eBay item 281257014767.

Are you able to post pictures?

Hope to be at least hearing from you soon.

jtk

[Michael Ray Smith]

and the downside to having the adjuster is that there is more metal sticking up which limits you to how tight a curve you can attack. Trade-offs everywhere.

In addition, the ones with an adjuster to feel out of balance to me, too top heavy. It's all a matter of finding out what works for you.

[Mike Holbrook]

Michael has a post on spokeshaves above that gets into some of the uses and value of spokeshaves vs other tools. A few books that cover not only spokeshaves but a wide range of green & dry woodworking tools and how to make and or sharpen them are Drew Lagsner's Green Woodworking and The Chairmakers Workshop, Michael Dunbar covers some of this information in his Windsor chair books, Peter Galbert is suppose to be coming out with a book very soon. Peter Galbert offers 25 free videos on his Chair Notes Blog, Curtis Buchanan offers over 50 free videos on his Windsor Chairmaker web site. The green wood guys tend to use tools they make themselves. Peter Galbert builds some innovative tools, including a travisher/spokeshave, that he sells but also provides information on making on his website and Blog. The green wood guys, particularly Galbert, tend to use cutting/scraping hand tools for finished surfaces and shy away from sandpaper.

Glenn Livingston at Woodjoy Tools makes some innovative spokeshaves and other tools at more than reasonable prices and is a good source of information. Jim at Crown Planes makes wood planes & tools, including a nice small compass plane and a travisher. There are a number of hand tools the green wood guys use for this work starting with carving axes and adzes, moving to drawknives and inshaves and finishing with spokeshaves, travishers, compass planes and various scraping devices. Watch a few of Cutis's videos on making the parts for his chair and I think you will be amazed at how much these guys can do with simple hand tools. These videos demonstrate the use of hand tools at a whole different level in my opinion. Curtis starts with a green log, some wedges an axe and a sledge...and ends up with chairs that are amazing.