Share your craft projects
Make new craft buddies
Ask craft questions
Blog your craft journey
Dave Polaschek
1469 posts
and
43 followers
in over 1 year
in over 1 year
More from Dave Polaschek
Spokeshave Rack
I collected all (?) my spokeshaves yesterday and built a rack to hold them. Cut a piece of ¾x⅜ maple into two pieces, then turned it to make ⅜ inch dowels on the lathe. Glued them into a board and stuck a cleat on the back. Nice quick project. I should probably put some oil on it one of these days, but… mañana.
From the top, here’s a quick description of each, how it’s set up, and what I use it for:
From the top, here’s a quick description of each, how it’s set up, and what I use it for:
- Veritas, set up for general purpose, fairly thin, general use;
- Lie Nielsen Boggs with curved base, set up a little thick for concave curves;
- Veritas low angle, set thin for end grain;
- Home-made low angle spokeshave set up thicker for quick stock removal;
- HNT Gordon small, general use, but thin for tricky grain or finishing;
- HNT Gordon large, as the small, tricky grain;
- Millers Falls cigar shave, not yet tuned, but I hope to get it tuned up and usable, since the round blade is nice for tight concaves;
- Kunz travisher, curved base side to side, which is set to hollow chair seats and smooth out adze marks;
- Kunz adjustable mouth spokeshave, set relatively thin, generally for use against the grain and sharpened to behave almost like a scraper;
- and finally the Stanley spokeshave, which was the first I bought, and showed me all the ways a shave could be wrong.
A shave set for “general use” is usually set for a thinner cut on one side, and a thicker cut on the other, so depending on where on the blade I’m hitting the wood, I can control the depth of the cut. Some are thicker left and others are thicker right, and I have to give each a try to find what’s best for a given job. The two low angle spokeshaves and the two HNT Gordon shaves are generally for end grain or reversing grain.
In all, I probably have twice as many shaves as I really need, but half of them were packed away in a box I didn’t unpack until earlier this week (since we moved almost 4 years ago). So I bought a few more while I was not unpacking that box. The HNT Gordons are completely unnecessary, but they’re pretty and feel nice in the hand (they’re made from gidgee wood), so they have rapidly become favorites.
May you have the day you deserve!
21 Comments
Nice idea and great tips about how to use them.
TimV, "The understanding eye sees the maker's fingerprints, they are evident in every detail, leave Fingerprints." James Krenov
I was going to say, you making wagon wheels buddy?
You short summary told me more about them than I ever knew or expected, thanks!
Kudos for making your own dowels, one way to cull the scraps bin and get quality time on the lathe 👍
Form and function, excellent idea Dave!
You short summary told me more about them than I ever knew or expected, thanks!
Kudos for making your own dowels, one way to cull the scraps bin and get quality time on the lathe 👍
Form and function, excellent idea Dave!
1. That's a lot of spokeshaves!!
2. Very nice design
2. Very nice design
very nice display GR8 JOB 😍😎👍
*TONY ** Reinholds* ALWAYS REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN
Thanks, all!
Splint, I use spokeshaves a lot for flat work and edges. It’s a coin-toss between whether I’ll grab a block plane or a spokeshave to chamfer the corners on a box, for example. On the bench I’m working on for my sweetie’s cousin, the edges of the legs got the spokeshave treatment before I pulled out the #66 to put beads in them.
Splint, I use spokeshaves a lot for flat work and edges. It’s a coin-toss between whether I’ll grab a block plane or a spokeshave to chamfer the corners on a box, for example. On the bench I’m working on for my sweetie’s cousin, the edges of the legs got the spokeshave treatment before I pulled out the #66 to put beads in them.
As for making my own dowels, I started just rounding one end with a knife (the top few have square tips) then said, “Duh, I have a lathe RIGHT THERE!” The hardest thing was that the 16 inch long piece I was working got a little whippy in the middle when I was rounding it with the skew, so I had to wrap my other hand around it to settle it down.
May you have the day you deserve!
Well done Dave.
-- Soli Deo gloria! ( To God alone be the Glory)
Nicely done!
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
NIcely done Dave and a nice little collection too.
Main Street to the Mountains
Thanks, guys!
Eric, it’s basically two collections, one of which was packed in a box. But yeah, I did a pretty good job of avoiding overlap.
Eric, it’s basically two collections, one of which was packed in a box. But yeah, I did a pretty good job of avoiding overlap.
May you have the day you deserve!
Nice easily accessible rack for the complete set of shaves. More settings than I imagined for spoke shaves, impressed that you'v created so many various settings & uses, and that you can remember the purpose for each. 👍 👍
Thanks, Tom! One of the things about most shaves is that the adjusters aren’t especially good, so I tend to set them up once when I get it, and then just advance the blade a skosh when I put it back after sharpening, but otherwise leave it the same.
It was also interesting to see that the Stanley I first bought has a blade so much thinner than all the others, except for the small Gordon plane, which has less than a third the width. I think I might be able to make that more usable with a Hock blade and then replacing the screw with a larger thumbscrew so I don’t have to hunt down my side chip-breaker screwdriver (which lives in the plane-sharpening box since that’s when it’s needed) just to adjust the shave.
It was also interesting to see that the Stanley I first bought has a blade so much thinner than all the others, except for the small Gordon plane, which has less than a third the width. I think I might be able to make that more usable with a Hock blade and then replacing the screw with a larger thumbscrew so I don’t have to hunt down my side chip-breaker screwdriver (which lives in the plane-sharpening box since that’s when it’s needed) just to adjust the shave.
May you have the day you deserve!
Handy rack Dave - I can't tell, is it tilted back?
If I tried a flat one shaves would slowly vibrate off.
If I tried a flat one shaves would slowly vibrate off.
The rack is vertical, Mike. But the pegs are all drilled in at a 1:6 angle, so nothing has jumped off yet.
May you have the day you deserve!
Nice set(s) of spokeshaves! I have one, from Flexcut.
Steven- Random Orbital Nailer
nice collection dave. ive got your first one, the veritas. actually ive got the 3 piece set. and ive got the last one, stanley which i agree with you!
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
I'll also admit I have the top (Veritas) with the curved sole. Bought it to fair curves on router templates. I've only used it a few times and haven't got the hang of doing a proper stroke yet. That whole rotate while dragging skill, just dunno....
Thanks, guys. The Stanley can be tuned up, but doing so would almost bring its cost up to the Veritas or LN. The Kunz adjustable is a nice shave for the money, or it was at the time.
Gets easier, Splint, but my practice was mostly fairing convex curves initially. That’s a lot easier, even crossing end-grain, than concave curves for me.
Gets easier, Splint, but my practice was mostly fairing convex curves initially. That’s a lot easier, even crossing end-grain, than concave curves for me.
May you have the day you deserve!
Good job and nice collection! I have one from Rockler but it's sitting in my tool box forever, haha.
No name noobie here
WOW, you have quite a collection. Nice to have the organized in one place like that!!
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
More from Dave Polaschek
