Spokeshave

My spokeshave arrived today. Brand new, but only $20. To be honest it's not worth a cent more. The blade had no edge, which was fine, and I was able to fairly quickly sort that out. I quite enjoy sharpening tools.

As you can see from the photos it had two adjustment knobs, but one of the shafts was bent, even with it straightened it is difficult to make fine adjustments as the knobs bind. I am going to see what I can do about that.

Having sharpened the blade I reassembled it and then took to a scrap piece of wood......bitterly disappointed. Nothing I seemed to do made it work well. It either dug in, chattered, needed far to much force etc etc.

So I retreated to you tube to get some training / advice on how to use it. I usually find you tube a wealth of information on the correct way to use something, but there is actually very little on there about spokeshaves. Anyway after about an hour of surfing I found the answer buried away in a forum post, the blade goes in bevel down, not bevel up. Well what a difference. It now performs like I expected. I think I need to have another round at sharpening the blade but I was still able to get nice consistent shaves with good control and minimal pressure.

Still need to practice some more with it, but I think I will soon be able to takes to my frames with it.


Having finished writing this, I was thinking about some of the stuff I saw on you tube and certainly with the wooden versions, they were definitely bevel up......interesting.