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

[Julie Moriarty]

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

Since I learn best from seeing, I thought I'd post this...

[Julie Moriarty]

[Jeff Ramsey]

My go-to rasps are the Nicholson #49 and #50. 49 is a rougher rasp and would precede the 50 in use. Tight curves are better attacked with a coarse then fine rat tail. Once you have your profile, proceed to paper abrasives (sand paper) and raising the grain with water in between sandings.

[Prashun Patel]

Alan-
I think you'll find working with a good rasp simple and intuitive. Some tips:

Buy a good one and wear a glove on your non-handled hand (since you'll likely end up using it two-handed).

Removing the material is the easy part. Removing it EVENLY takes marginal practice. Experiment with skewing the rasp so you're moving it at 45 deg across the curve, not perpendicular to it. This does two things: 1) it provides more bearing surface for the rasp, so it helps prevent rounding over the edges prematurely, 2) it helps in fairing the curve.

Work on the curve first (square to the edges) and perfect it before treating your edges. Sight down the piece to see how fair your curve is.

When you round over the edges, use a pencil or marking gauge to scribe a line down to your roundover point. You can make a template to gauge the profile along the edge, but I go by feel and prefer slight imperfections. If your roundover is a chamfer or 'crown' and has a hard line, then again, sight down the piece to make sure that line is fair and feels right.

To this end, unless you are template routing your pieces, I wouldn't be persnickety about the pieces being EXACT. If you gang them up and they're close enough, the user is not going to recognize tiny inconstencies between the arm rests. The only thing that's critical is that the joinery locations are symmetrical. To that end, I try to cut ALL my joinery before bandsawing. Hope you did that...

Rasps are underrated. Contrary to some opinions here, I find them extremely versatile; they can be used to good effect in tweaking joinery as well as your sculpting.

The marks on a coarse rasp require attention to eliminate. Using a spokeshave as the cleanup tool can eliminate a lot of sanding and scraping work. Personally, I like to leave one or two coarse scratches on each piece as witness to the process. TEHO.

Oh yeah, one more thing: if you are planning to do this a lot, then I'd get a random orbital sander with a soft backing pad. This short cuts a lot of work and cleanup.

[Julie Moriarty]

Rasps are underrated. Contrary to some opinions here, I find them extremely versatile; they can be used to good effect in tweaking joinery as well as your sculpting.

My initial experience with rasps was with machined rasps and after repeated attempts to get the results I saw online, I abandoned them. Then I saw a Chris Schwarz video and I learned about the difference between machine-cut rasps and hand-stitched rasps. He convinced me to make the plunge and I've never regretted it. They are so easy to work with.

[Mike Holbrook]

There is a rasp that is machined but does not suffer the same issues as Chris mentions concerning the manufactured rasps in the video above. The Iwasaki rasps have long curved edges like a plane with a radiused blade edge. Although they are manufactured, the edges/teeth are hardened much like the hardened teeth on Japanese saw blades that many are familiar with. I have a few TFWW hand tooled rasps and a couple Arious and use them fairly often. For most work I prefer the small, curly, longer shavings the Iwasakis make vs the dustier shavings the hand made tools make. It may require a little greater skill set to use the Iwasaki rasps as the direction they are used in may have more significance. I also like the fact that I can buy several Iwasakis for the price of one hand made rasp. If I want to remove a large amount of wood I use a Shinto, like the one Derek showed us above.

One of the interesting, educational, fun things about using drawnives, spokeshaves and some rasps/floats is these tools help one learn how to work with instead of against the grain. A user of these tools develops a good feel for when the tool is fighting the grain instead of working with it. One can't help but learn to read grain visually and by feel better. I have seen guys like Peter Galbert do very small, tight work with a drawknife that I could not come close to doing. While trying to help me with both the drawknife and spokeshave Peter and Seath, who helps Peter in classes, kept emphasizing seeing and feeling the grain. It seems to me this lesson is one of the most pervasive and important in learning to be a better woodworker.

I have seen both of these accomplished users of these tools produce a better surface just with a drawnife than I could produce with a drawknife, spokeshave and scraper.... The interesting thing is what they could do in a few or even single stroke with a drawknife I could not reproduce with all the tools no matter how long I worked the surface. I am still learning the drawknife and larger spokeshaves trying to just get close to what I saw Peter and Seath doing. I was inspired to see my instructors take what many would consider a coarse tool and produce a smoother surface than I have seen anyone produce on wood. What I came away from the class with was, the precision finished surface that can be created with a very sharp single edge is difficult/impossible to improve on if the cut is made with the requisite attention to the grain.

[Alan Lightstone]

Alan-
I think you'll find working with a good rasp simple and intuitive. Some tips:

Buy a good one and wear a glove on your non-handled hand (since you'll likely end up using it two-handed).

Removing the material is the easy part. Removing it EVENLY takes marginal practice. Experiment with skewing the rasp so you're moving it at 45 deg across the curve, not perpendicular to it. This does two things: 1) it provides more bearing surface for the rasp, so it helps prevent rounding over the edges prematurely, 2) it helps in fairing the curve.

Work on the curve first (square to the edges) and perfect it before treating your edges. Sight down the piece to see how fair your curve is.

When you round over the edges, use a pencil or marking gauge to scribe a line down to your roundover point. You can make a template to gauge the profile along the edge, but I go by feel and prefer slight imperfections. If your roundover is a chamfer or 'crown' and has a hard line, then again, sight down the piece to make sure that line is fair and feels right.

To this end, unless you are template routing your pieces, I wouldn't be persnickety about the pieces being EXACT. If you gang them up and they're close enough, the user is not going to recognize tiny inconstencies between the arm rests. The only thing that's critical is that the joinery locations are symmetrical. To that end, I try to cut ALL my joinery before bandsawing. Hope you did that...

Rasps are underrated. Contrary to some opinions here, I find them extremely versatile; they can be used to good effect in tweaking joinery as well as your sculpting.

The marks on a coarse rasp require attention to eliminate. Using a spokeshave as the cleanup tool can eliminate a lot of sanding and scraping work. Personally, I like to leave one or two coarse scratches on each piece as witness to the process. TEHO.

Oh yeah, one more thing: if you are planning to do this a lot, then I'd get a random orbital sander with a soft backing pad. This short cuts a lot of work and cleanup.

Great information, Prashun, as always.

I'd like to say that I cut all my joinery before bandsawing. I can't, but I'd like to say that.

Tried out my Veritas spokeshaves on scrap today. They kept chattering, left terrible marks due to that. I'm thinking they didn't come sufficiently sharpened, though I would have expected more from Veritas. Or, I just have them set up wrong. Have to experiment more over the weekend.

Julie - watched the video. Thanks. Also watched a few more on Youtube. But, as above, need lots of work on my spokeshave technique / setup. The rasps do look easier, but rougher.

[Mike Henderson]

I have a bunch of spokeshaves. I can't add much to what's already been said except to point out that the Boggs spokeshaves are what I'd call "finishing" spokeshaves. You can't hog off material with the Boggs. There are other spokeshaves that do a better job at coarse work.

In case it sounds like I don't like the Boggs, let me add that I love them. But for smoothing, not hogging.

Mike

[Alan Lightstone]

Well, ordered a few Auriou rasps, but sharpened the spokeshaves (not as easy as I would have liked. I'm a honing guide kinda guy, and the Veritas doesn't work well holding spokes have blades.)

Getting better with the spokeshaves (at least less chattering) but still need work.

The rasps have been a pleasure to try out, but leave a rough surface (at least the #11 does.). Easily sanded out, or perhaps followed by the spokeshave, but my technique clearly needs work.

[Julie Moriarty]

I find not until I get to the 15 grain modeler's rasp can I get a reasonably smooth finish.

I too have the Veritas honing guide but I didn't even try it with the spokeshave irons. I was able to get a very good edge honing by hand. I have some older Record spokeshaves and some newer L-N Boggs spokeshaves. The Record ones always chattered and after a while I gave up on them. The L-N ones were great right out of the box. The first thing I noticed when I compared them is the gap between the iron and the body. Record's gap was substantial, compared to L-N, which were about the distance of a hair. I couldn't see how any shavings could make it through there but they did and the spokeshave quickly became one of my favorite tools.

Another difference was in the mouth. The Record spokeshaves had a rough mouth opening that I had to file smooth. Of course filing opened the gap even more. The L-N were beautifully finished. I don't know if the differences I mentioned are what causes or eliminates chatter, but after using the L-N spokeshaves, I gave the Record ones away.

[Prashun Patel]

Are you using the MKII guide, Alan? Will your shave blade fit if you use the 'red' setting? All of my blades have worked with it.

I hear you on the chatter. On the round-bottom shaves, it's tricky. You really have to feel that sweet spot more than with a flat-bottom. FWIW, I only use my round bottom shave on tighter inner radii. A flat bottom or (broken record alert) BLOCK PLANE can still do a better job on gradual concave curves (yr chair arms notwithstanding) because they are able to better 'flatten' each point relative to its immediate neighbors. Think of fairing as micro-flattening.

I gotta say, fair-smoothing curves is maybe my favorite of all woodworking tasks. It's one place where the right tools just do a better job of creating an artistic line than the eye can.

[Alan Lightstone]

Are you using the MKII guide, Alan? Will your shave blade fit if you use the 'red' setting? All of my blades have worked with it.

I hear you on the chatter. On the round-bottom shaves, it's tricky. You really have to feel that sweet spot more than with a flat-bottom. FWIW, I only use my round bottom shave on tighter inner radii. A flat bottom or (broken record alert) BLOCK PLANE can still do a better job on gradual concave curves (yr chair arms notwithstanding) because they are able to better 'flatten' each point relative to its immediate neighbors. Think of fairing as micro-flattening.

I gotta say, fair-smoothing curves is maybe my favorite of all woodworking tasks. It's one place where the right tools just do a better job of creating an artistic line than the eye can.

Hmm, Prashun. I was using the MKII guides on the yellow settings, not the red. Had a Doh!! moment after you wrote that. That being said, I have an issue with the MKII Honing Guide even with my plane blades and chisels that the blade often shifts a little off square while sharpening, leading to an uneven angle. I don't know if I'm just pushing down too hard, or the guide just doesn't seem to hold blades tightly enough, but it is frustrating. That being said, I do use it for all my sharpening, but it sure seems to take forever because of that.

I feel better that I'm not alone on the chatter.

I did go ahead and finally ordered a couple more Auriou rasps (turns out not so easy to get some of them - LN was back ordered for about 2-3 months, so I went elsewhere. And for that needed 2 vendors, so shipping is a killer here. Ah, imported handmade tools...) They haven't arrived yet, sadly, so no joy this weekend.

[Alan Lightstone]

Still working on this task. I went the rasp route, as I just can't get my spokeshaves sharp enough yet. I've been watching a video of Paul Sellers building a jig to sharpen spokeshave blades with the Lie Nielsen sharpening guide (which I just purchased, and already like more than the MKII.) I think I'll build this, and try sharpening the blades on the LN honing guide.

Here's a link to that video. Very interesting, and looks to be exactly what I need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw1JGEbKgCw

BTW, Prashun, I tried the MKII on the red settings today. Doesn't have markings as to what the angle is around 25 degrees for the spokeshave blade. It does sorta work, but the angle looks more like 30 degrees at its lowest setting on red. Am I missing something, or did you just sharpen yours to 30 degrees. Those red settings are really designed for back bevels, at much smaller angles.

[Mike Holbrook]

Alan, The problem you are having with the spokeshaves may not be how sharp they are. Like Mike Henderson mentioned above some spokeshaves have very little room to pass a shaving. Check out the picture of the spokeshaves below paying particular attention to the gap, if any, around the blades. The smallest shave is a LN like Mike mentions above. So far I have not been able to get that particular shave to work at all for what I bought it for. There is not even room to pass a very small shaving. I am going to have to file the gap in the shave body larger, which I have been working on, but so far it still does not work. Contrast the blade gap on that shave with the big WoodJoy shave up top.

I was working some green wood to rough out handles for axes and adzes earlier. The big shave was the only one that had enough gap to pass pieces of bark through. The next WoodJoy spokeshave down from the big one was used to slowly cut away knots and rough spots. Neither of the LN shaves would have passed wet shavings at all. I had to open up the mouth/gap of the smaller WoodJoy just to get it to work. Someone is probably scratching their head here, trying to figure out how I was adjusting the gap/mouth on those WooJoy spokeshaves because most spokeshaves do not offer that feature. Some of the WoodJoy shaves have three sets of recessed screws that allow very precise placement of the blades, not only up & down but also forward and back.

Although the LV shaves offer the ability to adjust blade depth the only way to adjust the mouth opening is to use shims. Of course, any shim will just reduce the gap even more. When working grain that is moving in multiple directions it is easy to jam shavings in the mouth of your shave.

Spoke gaps 2.jpg

Oddly enough I was able to remove bark without removing much else best with the 6-7" drawknife. Using the drawknife is great fun and well worth the amount of time it takes to learn how to use it. The drawknife allows you to take a very large shaving/split in one stroke and take a very small one the next stroke. If the blade is sharpened for it, the blade can even be turned up or down in the wood sort of like a bandsaw blade. I still have trouble controlling a drawknife blade in tough wood and knots. I often use spokeshaves to whittle away the tough areas, restricting how much wood is removed with each stroke so that I do not bind the tool in the work.

[Alan Lightstone]

Out of curiosity, anyone know what kind of file that he is using in that video that Julie provided?