What's the best tool for this task - a spokeshave or a rasp?

[Prashun Patel]

i like drawknives but use them for roughing work. If you are using a bandsaw, I would go straight to your rasp/shaves. Not saying you shouldn't get a drawknife eventually, but for this you may just be complicating your life unnecessarily. In addition, sharpening a drawknife isn't quite as straight forward as sharpening other blades. Your rasp will not require as frequent resharpening so it's an easy tool to use that lasts a while before needing attention.

[Brian Ashton]

Rasps are nasty bits of kit, I won't use them. All they do is rip and tear and leave a mess that needs a lot of clean up. I'd go spoke shaves

[Al Launier]

Have you considered a belt sander?

[Prashun Patel]

Perhaps you are using the wrong rasps, Brian?

I've always found the coarse cut cleans up easily with a finer cut rasp, sandpaper or a spokeshave.

[Derek Cohen]

Regarding rasps ..

One needs to assess the nature of the grain and the hardness of the timber when deciding on the tool to use. I love using spokeshaves, but here I used a variety of rasps to shape this chair, and then finished with scrapers. The wood was simply too hard and interlocked for anything else ..



Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Ragan]

They are all great tools.

I have mostly used Ariou rasps, and the Japanese plane rasps. Depends on how the grain is running, concave/vex, my mood, etc etc.

Rasps can be rather crude instruments, and don't require sharpening. That's good.

Still, though, I love the feel of any type of edge tool smoothly cutting wood. The Boggs shaves are great.

[Julie Moriarty]

I have three Auriou rasps and two Boggs spokeshaves that I use for shaping guitar necks. I also use the rasps for shaping the bodies of solid-body guitars. I enjoy using them all.

I had tried many different kinds of rasps, files and floats and was never happy with the results. Once I bought my first Auriou rasp, my search ended. They are a dream to work with. Spokeshaves are fun to work with but they alone can't get the job done. I can get about a finish on wood with a 15 grain modelers rasp to around the equivalent of 80 to 100 grit sandpaper. With a lighter touch, I'd say it approaches 120 sandpaper.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Rasps are nasty bits of kit, I won't use them. All they do is rip and tear and leave a mess that needs a lot of clean up. I'd go spoke shaves

Brian, I have had a different experience/result, and I consider myself a finesse type of guy. I used an old Nicholsen 50, and a bunch of Auriou's on the Maloof rocker I am making out of walnut. I am wondering if you are using too much pressure on the coarser grains and maybe not stepping up enough. I can rough shape with a 6 or 9 - prefer the 9, and then just a little time with 11 and then very little final with a 14. No gouges, no tracks. It took awhile to figure out the technique, but got some good insight from an online video showing , I think, Noel Liogier using some rasps.

i had seen, but never used, the type of rasp shown in Derek's post. But he has a lot more knowledge and experience than i, plus a heck of a lot more hand tool experience than I.

[john zulu]

John, I think he was showing before and after pictures re roughing out on the bandsaw: " . . . that have been roughed out on a bandsaw. I'm wondering what will be the best tool for refining the curves . . . . . ".

Ah.... Then drawknife then spokeshave.

[Mike Holbrook]

Like Derek mentions it depends on the wood. I have worked some dry oak chair backs that I could not use a drawknife or shave on because it was just to hard with too much cross grain, like the piece Derek shows above. Leave it to Derek to modify a Shinto rasp to make it work even better! That Shinto rasp above is made from saw blades and often works where other rasps want. Not sure if Derek broke the original second handle that comes on the rasp or not? My guess is Derek found the second handle not to have a solid enough attachment to the rasp?

I like the Iwasaki rasp/files. They make more of a shaving like a plane instead of sand paper. They are also very hard/hardened steel that stands up to tough wood. I have a couple large heavy duty spokeshaves with 3-5" blades, made by Woodjoy, that might also work. I bought them specifically so I could work harder tougher woods. There is a special type of spokeshave called a Travisher that is made to get down into recesses.

[bridger berdel]

Drawknife, then spokeshave.

It looks to me like those bandsawn shapes don't need enough material removed for a drawknife to make sense.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Rasps are very intuitive to use and very forgiving about grain direction. Spokeshaves are less forgiving, and drawknives are pretty unforgiving.

Rasps were the first woodworking tools I used, since I started out making archery bows. I found it pretty easy to make pleasing shapes with cheap hardware store rasps and files. I've never used one of the fancy artisan rasps, although I'm sure they're excellent. I used basically three tools- a big honking farriers rasp for coarse work (leaves a very ragged, torn surface), followed up with a finer rasp (Nicholson 49 or similar) until the shape is almost achieved, then finished with a file (like a mill file for metal, or a 4-in-1 rasp) to remove the rasp marks and fine tune the shape. Each tool easily removes the marks from the previous one. After finishing with the file, I could go to 150 grit sandpaper and remove file marks easily.

If you have a bit of skill with the spokeshave it should make the work a bit faster compared to my method, and there would be little need for sanding. But rasps, even hardware store ones, will get the job done.

[Jeff Ramsey]

I agree with others; a spokeshave and set of rasps. I'll add, if you build enough chairs it might be worth looking into getting a shaving horse. They're quite convenient when working on chair components.

Shaving_horse.jpg

[Alan Lightstone]

I'm learning tremendously from all of your inputs. Keep them coming.

Yes, indeed, there is not a huge amount of material that needs to be removed from the rough bandsawn shapes. Mainly smoothing and getting curves on matched pieces to look the same.

I have no experience using either rasps or spokeshaves, so I'd love some tips for usage also.

[Mike Holbrook]

No two people work the same so different tools will work better for different users. For my time and money I prefer spokeshaves with blades that can be adjusted for depth of cut and size of mouth too if I can get that option. Blades that are easily adjusted over a wide range are more versatile tools in my book. Some of the favorite spokeshaves out there have very limited adjustability, probably because they are easier to make and a little easier to use. Other spokeshaves can be hard to adjust exactly. Drawknives can do a great deal more in the hands of experienced users especially if they know how to sharpen them for specific work. For me rasps are the simplest to use because they require a lesser skill set and typically do not need to be sharpened. I think rasps are also the least versatile tool, mostly useful for removing small amounts of wood. The shape of a rasps blade can also limit what can be done with it.

I don't think anyone has mentioned scrapers yet. Scrapers are very popular for finishing chair surfaces. Scrapers are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes that can fit into all sorts of curvy surfaces.