spokeshaves

[Skip McKenzie]

Greetings folks, I'm working on a sidebard for my wife. The legs are going to be cabreiole design I was going to use a spoke shave to get the legs rounded over. What is the secret to a clean cut, I cannot get consitant cuts without a lot of chatter. The wood is maple, I have sharpened and checked to make sure the blade is square, with the same results.

Thanks Skip

[Alan Turner]

Skip,
Cabriole legs are among my favorite legs. There are 3 or 4 good articles in FWW on the making of these. Perhaps you have access to the archives of old articles? I am assuming you are cutting them pretty close to shape with a bandsaw. If so, then the spokeshave is used just for smoothing, and a bit of final shaping.

Are you using a radius bottom spokeshave? The Boggs, by LN, is my favorite, although the LV is not too bad as well. Note that the ankle and knee areas will be better done with a rasp and files. At the foot, the curve is too tight. On the knee, it is difficult to get a fair convex curve with a SS, at least for me.

Good luck.

[Skip McKenzie]

Hi, Alan I'm using a flat SS (record), not sure if that is the problem or not. I have read the articles in FWW and yes I'm using a rasp and files along with a japanese rasp where needed. It's going really well, I was hoping to use the SS to help bring the round sections of the leg into shape where it can be used.

Thanks, Skip

[Pam Niedermayer]

I think the keys are very sharp blades at the right distance from the base, just like planes. Depending on what type of blade you have, you can often adjust that distance differently on each end of the blade.

I strongly recommend Brian Boggs' dvd on horses, spokeshaves and drawknives sold by LN.

Pam

[Mark Singer]

You must set that spokeshave finely and watch the wood grain direction.

[Rod Wolfy]

You need a really sharp blade (scary sharp) and your mouth set to take a very fine shaving. A couple of other pointers - make sure that you go with the grain (which isn't always easy to tell - you might try it going from each direction. I've even had to go from both directions, stopping in the middle, where the grain reversed!).

The other big factor is the type of spoke shave. I have both of the types, bevel up and bevel down. One type is like the Lee Valley/Veritas, (their black metal handeled one), which is difficult to get the blade set for a very fine cut (not much support in front of the blade, which has the bevel up. This is why this type of design chatters more IMO). I also have three from Kansas City Tools, which have a similar blade design (brass plate in front of the blade). These types of spoke shaves are difficult to sharpen too; because the blade usually has the mounting screw posts attached to the blade.

The other type of spoke shave has the bevel down. You can remove it and sharpen it kind of like a plane blade. The tools have a frog to hold the blade in place and are usually well supported in front of the mouth by metal. I have three Lee Valley/Veritas ones and they have been outstanding. The LN ones are similarly good. The main difference is that the Boggs/LN has a narrower throat and it doesn't have the Lee Valleys simple blade adjustment mechanism (screws on the blade for depth adjustment - as opposed to using a bench hammer on the LN).

I'd highly recommend that you get one of the latter kind of spokeshaves, tune up the blade and then narrow down the throat if needed (Lee Valley supplies shims for this). You shouldn't have much of a problem if you do this.

The Record spoke shave will be more inclinded to chatter and tougher to tune.

Rod

[Alan Turner]

Hi, Alan I'm using a flat SS (record), not sure if that is the problem or not. I have read the articles in FWW and yes I'm using a rasp and files along with a japanese rasp where needed. It's going really well, I was hoping to use the SS to help bring the round sections of the leg into shape where it can be used.

Thanks, Skip

Skip,
I think the flat bottom is your problem. I believe that this cannot be made to properly work to smooth a concave curve. Looks like you may need to go shopping a bit.

[Robert Rozaieski]

I've never had a problem using a flat shave to do cabrioles. Use it only on the long curves, not the tightly curved areas. Also, make sure the iron is bedding flat against the shave body. The paint used on the old Record and Stanley shaves many times is to thick and prevents the iron from bedding properly, causing chatter no matter how sharp the iron is. Also, make sure you only cut "downhill" from the peak of the knee. If you try to go the other way (from foot to knee, or from the block to the knee), you'll be cutting against the grain.