Lee Valley Veritas Round bottom spokeshave

[Prashun Patel]

I normally love Veritas products, but this one has me stymied. I cannot for the life of me get it to cut. I have another cheap, curved-sole spokeshave that works pretty well.

There looks to be nothing defective.

It appears that the mouth is just too tight. Chips just can't get in. Yet it comes with shims to close up the mouth even further for finer cuts.

Does anyone own this? What is the secret to making this work? If I can't make it work, I'll just sell it and get 5 of those wonderful little rosewood planes LV sells...

[john zulu]

Check Derek's page. It contains an article to tune it.

[Steve Friedman]

Hi Prashun,

Derek did an article on the new LV cast spokeshave. Is the the one you're referring to, or is it the one with the wooden handles? If it's the cast one, you can ignore the rest of my post. I haven't tried it, but love the L-N bronze version of that shave. If it's the wooden handled one, I have one and have no problem with it, but have read of folks who have had problems with them. I think the biggest problem is the way the cap seats on the blade. It's really easy to have it not seated all the way. Otherwise, it's just keeping the blade very sharp and taking light cuts.

I remember a thread a while ago about the tightness of the mouth on the LV spokeshaves and actually tested mine. While it's not near as wide open as the old Record or Stanley shaves, it is certainly capable of taking pretty sizable shavings.

Just one more thing about curved spokeshaves is to remember that the radius of the curve is different. The L-N bronze has a very tight radius, but the L-N Boggs is very large. The LV wooden handled one is sort of in between. I spoke to Deneb about that last year when I was in Maine and he suggested not being shy about altering the radius of the sole to suit your needs. He's right, of course.

Hope that helps.

Steve

[Prashun Patel]

I have the wooden-handled Veritas one. I have not had problems with the cap. Both the cap and blade are bedded properly.

I just cannot get it to take a cut. Not a heavy one, not a light one. Neither skewing the depth of the blade nor the presentation of the tool to the wood have helped.

I'll check out Derek's thread.

[Steve Friedman]

Derek's article is about the other shave.

I hope you're not offended by this question, but do you have the blade bevel down? I once couldn't figure out why mine wasn't cutting and it turned out that I put the blade in bevel up.

By the way, are you referring to the shave that has a convex sole (the one they call the round spokeshave) or the one with the concave sole? i have both and am able to take pretty thick shavings without problem. Can you post a picture showing the mouth opening?

Steve

[Prashun Patel]

Haha! No offense taken; great question! I have the blade bevel down. I TRIED to install it bevel up but the cap position is fixed in the body, so it's impossible to get it to seat right with the blade up.

I am talking about the one with the convex sole and the flat blade used for shaving concave curves. I didn't get the convex one (the spindle forming one) because I stink at sharpening those kinds of blades.

I'll post a picture tonight...
Thanks!

[Bill Houghton]

You should, of course, contact Lee Valley, whose customer service staff will be eager to help. If you happen to have feeler gauges, it would be helpful to let them know the mouth opening wit no shims in.

A comment on round-soled shaves: I find they work better, in my hands anyway, when I pull them. Curling my wrists in as I follow a line works better than curling them out, so I have more control.

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks Bill. Yes, I have contacted LV. They are helping me diagnose. I like to throw questions out here as well, because I usually find someone who's already been through it. LV's always helpful; I sent them the question first actually.

[Jonas Baker]

Hi Prashun,


Have you tried to make a cut on a flat surface? If so, were you able to get a cut on the flat surface? If you are able to get a cut on a flat surface, then it could be that the curved surface you are trying to cut has too tight of a radius, so the blade may not be making contact with the wood I have found that in general, it is a bit lore difficult to get a proper shaving on a cuffed surface with a convex soled spoke shave.


Best of luck,


Jonas

[Prashun Patel]

Here are a couple pix. The mouth seems pretty tight, yet there is NO blade projection yet. In order to get any blade projection, the mouth is so tight that the shavings just jam and I get chatter for a stroke or two, and then nothing.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Prashun

Check the bevel angle. It may be too high and this could be limiting blade projection. It should be around 25 degrees.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Prashun Patel]

It's 30 degrees. That hasn't affected the other shaves I have.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Prashun

I bet that it will work as wanted if you grind the bevel to 25 degrees.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Prashun

OK ... what seems to be happening is that the 30 degree bevel catches on the bed and lifts/slides the blade up and into the mouth. If you grind to 25 degrees (add a 30 degree microbevel later if you want), then the ground off area lies further back and does not lift the blade as before.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Prashun Patel]

Derek, I should have clarified: The blade is honed to 25 deg with a 30 degree micro bevel only. My microbevel is about 0.5mm or less still.