Spoke Shave

[Mike Holbrook]

Glenn is quite helpful and knows shaves, especially his. Glenn offers a unique adjustment or two not common in most spokeshaves. Other shave makers offer the ability to adjust either the mouth opening or the blade height, several of Glenn's shaves offer both adjustments without having any parts that protrude past the surface of the shave, quite unique. If you are interested in removing larger amounts of wood, for instance from rough bandsaw cuts, a drawknife or larger spokeshave will come in handy. A drawknife is a very powerful tool once one takes a little time to learn to use one. Good instructors can be very helpful. Guys like Peter Galbert, Curtis Buchanan and Drew Langsner can do inspiring/frequently surprising work with these simple tools. A good shavehorse is helpful in using these tools. I am remaking mine at the moment, converting it to a dumb head.

A micro bevel, on the back of a drawknife or some larger spokeshaves, can make a big difference in how they work. Peter Galbert sharpened one of my drawknives for me in a class, adding just a small bevel to the back of the blade. He explained that the small bevel would make it easier for me to pull the drawknife back up out of a cut, changing direction in the cut while making the cut. Pete calls this a landing strip cut. Basically this is a cut that goes deep fast then exits the wood fast. The point of this cut being that the layers of wood behind the cut can be removed quickly without fear of causing major tear out. I was very surprised at how this simple change made it much easier to change direction within a cut.

It seems to me the more one adapts to using drawknives and spokeshaves the more one appreciates: wider mouths, curved blade rests, beveled (on the backside) sharpening techniques... As is often the case though, too much of any one or all of these features can make these tools very hard to use.

[Chris Fournier]

Handplane, spokeshave, chisel. Easy to difficult to master in that order I'd say and it has everything to do with the registration and bearing of the cutting edge in the cut. I totally agree with the sharpening advice you've been given, I get a mirror finish from 800/4000/6000/8000 with the stones that I use.

I use spokeshaves to refine curves and draw knives to rough them out as I find draw knives to be dead simple to use as I ride the bevel and the edge cuts predictably. My favourite is a little 4" knife that I bought at LV years ago, you may like it too...

[Simon MacGowen]

The latest Lee Valley Newsletter on shop knives has a few pointers about spoke shaves. Check it out if you haven't.

Simon