I came to this site tonight with the intent of trying to contact Mario Rodriguez who wrote a fine article on spokeshaves for Fine Woodworking in about 1997. I have the article because a while back I bought the Taunton Press book Working with Handplanes (which is a collection of articles from the magazine put into glossy format). What did I find on the site but a whole passel of woodworkers sharing ideas, a nice place to come.
But I might as well come back to my original purpose, a question on spokeshaves. (I just found a need for one so read the MR article that I’d ignored when reading the book on planes).
Mr. Rodriguez speaks highly of the virtues of the old traditional wooden spokeshaves with their low angle of attack, but then praises the modern metal tools for their convenience and ease of sharpening. He also says that two basic spokeshaves will serve most needs, a flat bottom and a curved bottom. I’m with him on that.
But in a recent catalog from Woodcraft (www.woodcraft.com) they advertised a new product from Veritas (whom I normally think of a being a bit overpriced for small conveniences and “idiot proofed” tools). The blurb read “a spokeshave with the cutting angle of the traditional wooden spokeshaves”. Given MR’s comments I had to be interested.
In summary, I bought the damned thing – $55 when I could have gotten two Stanleys (a flat and a curved) for a bit less. Now I’m curious, since I haven’t spokeshave experience. I think this thing is a gem, and worth every cent. I got it today and have done some shaping of the legs for a music stand prototype I’m making. I think it might be a single spokeshave that actually can do all it claims (neglecting coves and other things involving shaped blades).
Let me describe it, and may I ask for comment from anyone else who has tried it, or from anyone who sees a flaw in the logic.
Like the old wooden spokeshaves the blade is held by tangs, but the tangs at the edge of the blade are held in by cap screws with knurled nuts so the advance of the blade is easily adjustable. The blade itself is the base, but there is a “toe piece” that sets the level of cut (and can be reversed to allow an inside curve). The mouth is adjustable between the advance of the blade and the cut depth of the toe piece. The picture is on the vendor’s site, but I had to guess from that.
So, what do I have? I’m not trying to pitch the Veritas spokeshave as I don’t know if it is any good as I have no comparison (never having used one). But my impression is that this device is unique, and not only fulfills the function of a flat base and a curved base spokeshave but may also do it even better. The bevel is up, like a block plane. The blade bevel is 25 deg., and the relief angle is whatever your hands make it, but the flat side of the toe piece would make it about 28 deg.
Do any of you see any fault in this theory, that they have duplicated the strengths of the low angle spokeshave, and done so with a single tool for inner and outer curves? I’ve only got a couple of hours of playing with it, but I’ve been shaping hard maple legs for a prototype music stand.
OK, a negative. It is difficult to adjust the depth of cut exactly as the blade is fixed and the toe piece (that is the real base). is free on two screws. So it is an eyeball job. Also the mouth adjustment (not available on other spokeshaves anyway, if the blade is held by a cap piece) versus the depth is a balancing act. But I’ve always liked block planes, and with the bevel up this Veritas is a simple contraption.
Comments from any one who has also tried it? Comments from anyone who sees a flaw in the theory? I have a credit at Woodcraft that I have to use soon, and wonder if I should get the Stanley pair of flat and rounded before it runs out. But my initial impression is that I can use it for something else. This Veritas may be the “perfect” spokeshave for general use on both internal and external curves (and flats). But my experience isn’t enough to decide that yet.
Best, Jon
Replies
jwm57,
I'm new to spokeshaves too and enjoyed hearing your initial impressions of the Veritas. Last year I picked up three old wood ones of various sizes for $25 bucks at a swap meet and have found them useful and fun. Sometimes, however, it's a toss up between useing the spokeshave or the #49, 50 Nicholson files for shaping...ie. don't spend that Woodcraft credit too quickly.
I'll be interested in hearing your or others experiences in sharpening the blades.
BTW, have you discovered http://www.thewoodworkingchannel.com yet...
Edited 4/16/2006 6:26 am ET by BG
i have also bought the vertias spokeshaves, flat and curved base and love the flat based one but can't stop the curved base one from chattering. it seems to be the nature of the curved one to chatter as it has little or no base to rest on in most curves.
however the flat base one is a gem. the blade is nice and thick and sharpens up very nicely.
Hi Everyone,
The low angle Veritas shave is similar in design to the Stanley Razor shaves of yeateryear. And the work as well or better. The Razor shave came originally as a wood shave iirc and later in the metal version. In anycase, both exist.
The LV/Veritas is a gem of a shave. Being a low angle shave, it may not always be the best choice for a given type of wood as you may experience some tear out. But many times there is no other type that will work as well.
The regualar shaves Graydog references, like the Boggs shaves from LN, are also great shaves, but bedded more steeply. The one thing about the radiused sole shaves is that depending on the wood, one needs to set it for the lightest of cuts and make sure it is as sharp as you can make it in order to avoid chatter.
I have had and used both LV/LN versions and both companies rediused shaves will chatter under too thick a shaving with some woods. Oh, another thing. If the shave is sharp and is set for a light cut, both maintaining the same relative angle of the shave during the cut, and maintaining a firm pressure will often eliminate the chatter.
When I have experienced chatter, often switching to a low angle shave reduces or eliminates it.
One last thing. If you want a fun day-long project, the LV low angle spokeshave kit is a fun one. All one needs to do is add wood and for less than a near perfect vintage low angle shave, you can have a new one.
Take care, Mike
Ah so Mike, I just Googled Veritas and came up with Lee Valley and Veritas in the same references. I assume that LV is Lee Valley, and that Veritas is an alternate name for the same maker. BTW, tell me about the kit, and about LV. I also bought the Veritas fancy honer guide and registration device (I know, the experts all say that you don't need guides, and that they can be detrimental - but honing over a beer without a guide can be even more detrimental, and I won't use my grindstone on good steel, to easy to make a mistake if one isn't doing it all the time).
Come to think if it, that is the definintion of leverage (or power tools). I often used it when I was working in the computer business. I said "the computer is a lever for the mind, it increases the speed with which you can make mistakes". If I can pick up an object it is unlikely I can do serious damage to myself if I drop it, but if I use a crane to pick up an object much bigger then I can do serious damage to everyone around me if I drop it in the wrong place.
There is the circle, I prefer to hone my tools entirely by hand on waterstones. And since my boredom factor is no less than others I do it in my armchair with a beer and the TV going. So a good guide rather helps keep consistancy in the "angle of the dangle". Veritas has a good device for that, even if it is $55. Better that than some of the damage I've done to tools when my attention wanders.
So it would seem that LV/Veritas is rather innovative, despite the negatives on them I've seen in articles by purists. I sympathize with the purists in that I make most of my own jigs (my long throat thickness guage, $180 commercial, for lute soundboards cost me the $35 for the Sears depth guage and about another 2 bucks for the aluminum angle stock and brass rod to make it). But on the whole a purist can be defined as one who eschews even the conveniences that really work.
I ramble, but that is my tendency. I must tell a story. When confronted with a problem I often say "let's use the old Indian method". As a kid in summer camp we were on an overnight. The counselors couldn't get the campfire going. One of them said "let's use the old Indian method". A gaggle of ten year olds awaited the tinder, the flint and stone (or the bow and spindle). The counselor threw some kerosene on the logs and twigs and tossed on a match. A revelation, would the Indians have fussed with all that effort had they had matches and kerosene?
I don't mean that one should do it the easy way in the sense of less quality, after all I do take the time to hand hone - even if it is with a guide. But when the result is the same there is no reason to be a purist. Fire is fire. And I guess this ramble is in part a back turn to the purists of the lute (an instrument I play and make) who regard anything after 1600 to be impure. (Hell, if Bach had heard Dixieland Jazz he would have been with it, not rap though, Bach liked variations on a theme rather than a continual repetition.
Best, Jon
Lee Valley is the mail order tool company selling all kinds and brands of hand tools for Woodworking and Gardening. Here is the link to the section on spokeshaves.http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&cat=1&p=50230Veritas is a developer and manufacturer of Woodworking (mostly) tools that was founded by the Lee Valley owners. They sell through Lee Valley and through other retailers and catalog companies. Here is the link.http://www.veritastools.com/Home.aspx
Sorry for not getting back sooner. It's good others are on the ball and the LV/Veritas acronym explanation was answered by a couple people.
Yes, the metal low angle made by Veritas is a handy and versatile tool due to is being able to be configured via the toe piece.
The spokeshave kits as sold by Lee Valley is the blade, posts which come off the blade and through the wood body for adjusting purposes. Ah heck, there's a good review out there on the UK Workshop forum as done by Alf.
http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3794
The link shows the kit contents and what it took for her to build it.
Take care, Mike
Mike, I have looked at Alf's project description in making the Veritas spokeshave kit and decided I was right to spend the $55 on the finished product. I do like making my own jigs and tools but there is a limit to when there is a saving involved. If I had nothing else to do I'd make the kit - but I'm building a renaissance lute (which involves a lot of careful shaving and wood bending) and making music stands.
I wil say that if there is a way to post a picture on Knots I can show a deep throat thickness guage (needed for soundboards on lutes where the thickness varies for resonance reasons). They run about $180, but an ordinary Sears depth guage and some aluminum angle stock, and a bit of scrap wood, and a bit of brass rod, and you have one just as good.
Best, Jon
Hi Jon,
Well, that's why someone like Rob Lee offers us different options! And there use to be a greater difference in cost, which is when I bought mine.
As I make tools [saws], making a shave or two seemed fun and a good way to spend an afternoon. It relaxes me. But while I make saws, I don't make my own hand planes even though I have friends that do. For me, it is a more cost effective use of my time to purchase them, just as the shave was for you.
When you are composing your message, there is an option to attach a file to your post down near the bottom--one of the buttons.
I don't know what the file size limit is, but I believe a 480 pixel-wide image at moderate resolution works. Here's a pair of saws I made...
Take care, Mike
QC,
Thanks, I kind of figured it was something like that but wasn't sure how it worked. So as I understand it from your message Lee Valley is a marketer who also devops/makes products under the name Veritas. And Veritas is a developer/maker who also markets through other vendors.
They present the ultimate philosophical question - which came first, the chicken or the egg <g>.
Best, Jon
Maybe this will clear up my earlier post a bit. To clarify I don't have a stake (but I wish I did) in any of these companies. Lee Valley is a mail order company (with catalog/retail stores in 10 Canadian cities) founded by Leonard Lee, well over 2 dozen years ago to sell woodworking tools. About 10 years or so later Leonard started Veritas to make wood working tools that are sold by other companies all over the world in addition to his company. I'll add that as far as I know Veritas tools are made in Canada, not overseas.Somewhere along the way he got involved with creating Algrove Publishing , many titles which naturally are also sold through Lee Valley too.After Leonard retired (son Rob Lee continues advancing the companies) he ended up founding another company that develops medical tools for Surgeons, the name of which escapes me.I don't know if there are any other companies linked to this under achieving Canadian, but in this case there is no chicken/egg question . It's a baking question about a very smart cookie. ;-)When I want a tool or some hardware, Lee Valley is the first place that I check, and in most instances the place I buy from. They set the standard for customer service that few others match. If you buy from them the more you'll appreciate that fact.
QC,
I've already added Lee Valley to my favorites list. I will certainly look at their site whenever I'm looking at tools. I do like Woodcraft in W.Va. for service as well, and for selection. But as with all vendors each has a speciality, I also like Rockler.
As to the chicken and the egg you answered my question, the Lees started with the mail order, and proceded to the tool design (yes, a smart Canadian).
And just in case that sounds like a wise guy American (you didn't sign with "eh") may I mention another Canadian. My father was born in NWT in 1892, and lived in three places without moving. In 1900 the eastern part of NWT was split off and became the province of Assiniboine - then in 1902 that was split down the middle into Saskatchewan and Alberta. His NWT town of Moosemin wound up in Saskatchewan. In those days that area was more than just rural, it was really the boondocks. (My grandmother told stories of her youth in the 1860s and '70s that included secretly observing, as a small child, the annual "brave making" ceremony of the Assiniboine - and that was the very ceremony depicted as punishment in the movie A Man Called Horse, but she described it to me fifteen years before the movie came out).
The old man worked his way through college, and even sent money home. He was in the first graduating class (1918) of the Univ. of Saskatchewan (quite liberal, them Canadians, half the class were women - I have the class picture - in a day when women's education was limited). He then went on to graduate work at McGill, then Harvard - all while sending money home to help out. I would be a Canadian native had not Woolworth built the world's tallest building in NYC. He visited there to see it, and got a job with Bell Labs and stayed. But I maintain my heritage, I drink Molson's.
Best, Jon
(Jonathan Wyman Murphy, named for Jonathan Wyman Wright - the father of Philemon Wright who piloted the first lumber raft down the Ottawa River - the Wrights and the Wymans found it expedient to move north from Mass. after picking the wrong side in a small altercation in the late 1770s)
Jon,
Great post-script!!!
James
James,
I figure they were about two steps in front of the tar and feathers <g>.
Best, Jon
JON, to finish up the question, you will never go wrong with LV. Their engineering is not to match the market needs, it looks like it's to exceed them with the best materials and quality control. If anything slips into the cracks, they take care of it at the speed of light. I will soon post a "Customer service " item comparing them and Sears parts that I fell prey to in my recent speed run to my new retirement house(shop) in Eastern TN. from long island NY.
On the other hand my daddy was one of 14 from Argentia Newfoundland, an Irish carpenter/fisherman who never bought anything that he could make himself.(and there was little that he couldn't make) A tough road for a young South Brooklyn lad growing up but a bloody priceless education in retrospect . ALL THE BEST. PAT
Pat,
I now have two items from LV/Veritas, neither bought directly from LV as I didn't know of them (and I looked at the site, I could have saved a lot on wet/dry sandpaper for lapping planes as I wouldn't have had to buy a five year supply that other vendors package <g>). Neither item is cheap, but each is well worth the price. The new "old fashioned" spokeshave is one, and the other is their new honing guide and registration piece. I had avoided Veritas as some books turned up their noses at them, but they also turned up their noses at any such "aids". I am a convert, what I can't make myself I'll buy from them - or when their "aid" gives me more time to do the routine.
Like your daddy I do like to make my own tools (or more likely jigs, like the registration piece). But sometimes the commercial one is so good that it isn't worth the effort. In the old days, particularly in a place like Labrador, there wasn't any reasonable alternate source - and I'm sure if I were in Eastern TN, as you are now, I'd be making "clearsachs" (the old Celtic harp which is carved from a solid block of wood - I do make harps and play them). But in an apartment in Central Jersey one would have to buy the wood - and it is hard to buy an old log that has been lying in a bog for a hundred years. I envy your location for wood.
But I do have to defend Sears, they make some good tools (oops, not make, buy from OEMs and rebrand them). One just has to be selective. They do tend to be a bit "iffy" on items they've chosen to discontinue, and some of their stuff is adequate only for occasional work.
Best, Jon
For Greydog, I think we have a bit of confusion, it seems you are speaking of two Veritas shaves (BTW all, I note the reference to LV shavers - is that Veritas? - I know LN is Lie-Nielson). I am speaking of a single Veritas shaver with a "fixed" blade and a movable toe piece. The blade can be moved to adjust the mouth, but the toe piece (there is no "tail" on this shaver, the blade itself is the tail and has to be kept angled above the workpiece at a small angle else there is no relief).
The toe piece can also be turned upside down to provide a curved "base" for internal cuts. I know it is a bit hard to picture (I had a problem with how it worked when I ordered it from the photo). There is no "base" behind the blade edge, the toe piece sets the angle, and one face of it is flat with about the right relief angle from the blade - and the other face a sharp curve so you are sort of on your own in angling the cut.
It is my initial impression that this may be a spokeshave for all seasons (other than coves and such), but I've only been using it two days. I am shaping some badly sawn legs for a prototype music stand I'm making (badly sawn as I wasn't sure how long I needed them, or what shape I wanted them - they are horizontal legs to support a veritical column, and removably fastened with tapered "bed rail hangers"). And I'm shaping them in my lap in with a beer and the TV on, so have a bit of a problem holding them.
So, as another plus to the Veritas (LV?) Low Angle Spokeshave I can use it one handed like a knife. I can put a "slice angle" so I follow the grain while working the piece with the other hand. Very convenient, as it doesn't involve a re-setup of the workpiece in a vise. I think this thing is a gem, but I await any negatives from experts.
Best, Jon
The easiest way to avoid chatter is to hold the shave at an angle to the work. This gives you more of the sole in contact with the piece.
BTW, I haven't been here for a while, glad to see the old Knots back.
Brent
Edited 4/17/2006 11:06 am ET by BrentS
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