What is this?

[Joe Tonich]

This may be a stupid question but what is this and how do you use it? My neighbor took me to one of his wifes friends for a garage sale last summer and I aquired this. It was her fathers and she wanted me to have it. Unfortunately after I said OK she charged me $10 for it. Oh well. I was in the garage a couple of weeks ago and found it & figured I'd ask. Also, once I find out what it is and how to work it, how do you sharpen it? As it is the cutting edge is not straight. The outside edges hit before the middle of the blade. Any info is appreciated.

[Phil Phelps]

Isn't that a draw knife? Draw, spoke shaver, I don't know the tech name. I think I'm close.

[Jim Young]

I'm not big on hand tools but I gotta throw in my guess. It looks like one of those seat scoopers. You know, the thing that make the divot form for the deriere(sp?) on chairs.

[Michael Cody]

It's a wooden spokeshave -- used to make wheel spokes, hence the fact that the cutting edge is bowed.

Great tool for making handles, spokes, chair rails, etc..

[Chris Knight]

Looks like a Buckhorn scraper to me

[Jim DeLaney]

Contrary to the other opinions, I think it's actually a scraper - basically a wood-bodied version of the Stanley 80. It would be used on highly figured wood, or wood with a lot of grain-direction changes in it, where a plane would cause tear-out.

<Center><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" COLOR="Blue">Jim D.</FONT></Center>
<P><center><img src="http://www.jcdelaney.com/usaflag.gif"></center><P>

[Lee Schierer]

Looks like a scraper to me. There is some printing on the metal part that retains the blade, what does it say?

[Joe Tonich]

E.C. ATKINS & CO
INDIANAPOLIS IND.

Tha blade is thin. About 1/16" thick and doesn't fit right. Seems too narrow (small) for the tool.

[Tom Sweeney]

Plug it in & see what it does - What! the plug is right there

Sorry guys I couldn't resist please don't kick me out. I like lurking in here

OK to make up for it I found this - it might be helpful???

<a href="http://www.megalink.net/~hayes/" target="_blank">Click Here</a>

They're calling it:
Old #82 Stanley Scraper, used for scraping paint. Signed EC. Atkins & Co. Indianapolis, Ind.

Found a few more hits doing a google search of
E.C. ATKINS & CO
INDIANAPOLIS IND.

[Tom Stovell]

We call that a 'rams horn scraper'. Not that it is one, that is just what we'd call it here.
We may not be very smart, but we're very sure about it.

Tom

[Doug Littlejohn]

Ditto what Tom said. Rams Head scraper. It's your basic scraper but the handle is formed like a Rams head with it's horns. Just a different style of handle than a regular #80 or such.

BTW, it looks quite nice and $10 seems like a very good price.

M .02, YMMV