A shave, but whats it called?

[skipskip]

Cute little fella, but what kinda shave is it?

and do I have the blade in correctly?


blade says "Cast Steel"


JUN 063 by skipskip, on Flickr


thanks

Skip

[lbgradwell]

Spokeshave!

[skipskip]

Are all shaves of this design considered spokeshaves?

the size isnt an issue?


and the two handles ones are drawknives?

thanks

Skip
who didn't get the carpentry gene in his family

[humber2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokeshave

[Bill Houghton]

I think the significant difference between a drawknife and a spokeshave is that the drawknife is just a blade with handles on the ends, nothing to keep the tool from digging in but your skill, while a spokeshave has a blade in a body.  You've got a traditional wood-body spokeshave; the cutting edge presents at a low angle, almost flush to the wood.  The other common design, with a metal body, is more like a really short bench plane with handles on the side, although this statement's a bit simplistic, since metal-bodied shaves also come curved front to back or side to side.

Woodworkers who get deeply into this stuff talk about wood-bodied shaves being better on end grain, metal-bodied on long grain.

Spokeshave blades/irons tend not to exceed 3" in width, with larger shaves, like the cooper's shave, having longer handles to clear the work, while drawknives tend not to be narrower (cutting edge) than 4", with the common sizes being 8" to 12".

Although it all gets very confusing when you get into the specialty trades like coopering and carriage making, where all bets are off.  But these tools are rare.

[scottg]

Wood bodied shaves like this are spectacular to use!
 Whenever I get a new person in my shop and they want to try a tool to cut wood? One of these is what I hand them. 
 When set up right they peel off shavings totally effortless, totally! You can't believe how easy it is to cut wood with one of these. 

 They made little ones less than 6" long, up to over a foot long!
 The specialty coopers and carriage makers? Well the coopers were massive! 5+" blades and very heavy bodies. The carriage makers were curved and had fences and...... just weird all over the place.

 Yours shows hardly any use. It could give a lifetime! The blade is nearly new size, and the body has no wear in front of the blade I can see. (guys would often inlay a slip of brass just ahead of the blade when the body wore some)
  Your shave has a slightly docked "nose" section, and rounded. Excellent for working curves! They made all of them plain flat as far as I know and each craftsman customized for the work they were doing.

 These shaves have a bad reputation with modern pretenders.
 First, they can't figure out how to sharpen them (duh). Then, they have trouble adjusting the blade. (double duh)
 These have stick tangs. Its friction that holds the blade. When properly sharp you don't need to move the blade at all until it needs resharpening, and that is not often. 
 Occasionally you see one where the tang mortices are actually worn and a little weak. Its beyond the skill level of many pretenders to pick up a shaving off the floor and use it to glue in a shim, so the hole is smaller and provides more friction.
(triple duh) 
 Gluing in a shim you need to do about once in forever. Takes 10 minutes tops.
 
   So, these shaves in great condition often sell for less than 10 bucks. And hardly any takers.
 They work sooooo good, and hardly anyone wants them??
Meanwhile, just the bare blades, (for you to make your own shave), except with --screw tangs--, sell like hotcakes for 50 bucks or so.
   Screw tangs are a lot more trouble to adjust if you ask me.  And yes I have both.
 
 The easy ones are free and the hard ones are expensive.  Go figure.

 Fix this one up a little and try it just once.  You will never want to be without one again!
   yours Scott