Spokeshave Buying Advice

Spokeshaves have been around since the dawn of woodworking. They haven't changed a whole lot and you'll encounter a whole bunch of them in catalogs, and if like me, you visit antique stores you'll see a bunch of different types there also. So I just want to kind of walk you through what a Spokeshave looks like and how you can tell one from another, what I like about them, what I don't like about certain types real quick. Just looking at this small collection of Spokeshaves right here. The earliest kind of Spokeshaves, you'll see, had wood bodies.

And the blade in them was mounted on two tangs that go down into the body. All one piece. And this would be today called a low angle Spokeshave because the blade has a pretty low cutting angle. This particular one is easy to adjust because you can set the blade height by use of these screws. Older, simpler types were adjusted by hammering on the tangs or on the blade.

They're pretty inexpensive, hard to adjust, really, really hard to sharpen these days. So I'd stay away from these unless you are ready for a challenge. But moving way forward, the most common type of Spokeshave is the one I love the best, is a very simple one. It has two adjusting screws here to move the blade up and down, and it's sharpened just like a normal chisel or a plain blade. This is the Stanley 151 that was...

has been made pretty much the same way ever since the first world war. This Spokeshave is a low angle Spokeshave as well. Just like that wood one that we saw before. If I flip it over, you can see this is actually the whole blade and the sole are one piece on this thing. And the advantage of any low angle tool as you probably know, is that it's easier to push than a standard angle tool.

But again, like the wooden forbearer, this one is much harder to sharpen. This is a nice tool, but I don't think it's for beginners, it's for more advanced woodworkers. The low angle Spokeshave. Moving on, oh man, this one is really interesting. It's got, as you can tell, a round body.

That means the sole of the tool is round. It's used for getting into concave surfaces. This is probably the most extreme round bottom Spokeshave ever made. It was made by a Miller's Falls back at the turn of the century. That's 1800 to 1900, that is.

Extremely hard to sharpen, difficult to use on any but the most concave of concave curves. So it's a very specialized tool. It wasn't made all that long, but if you ever see one at least you'll know what you're looking at. They're pretty rare and pricey. Moving on, this is the most common type of antiques Spokeshave that you'll find, the Stanley 51.

It doesn't have adjusting screws on it, unlike that other Spokeshaves I showed you before. There's no way to set the blade down or up by using a screw adjustment. What you have to do instead is to set it more or less in the right place. Give it a little tap here or there until it's just right. These are pretty inexpensive and are a really good buy.

I should also point out when I get to this one, I was lucky to find one that had been already modified by a previous user into having a slightly round bottom. Round being this way. And that allows me to get into gentle curves very nicely. And someone... the standard number 51 has a flat bottom.

Someone just took a file to this, filed it over and over and over and over a little bit until it got just a gentle round shape. Now you can do that yourself on any old Spokeshave. It's easy to be a tool modifier which is I think every good cabinet maker ought to be to make a tool work even better for you. Here's a modern version made by Lee Valley of this old Stanley Spokeshave. Again, two adjusting screws, a nice thick blade.

This one also has a slightly round bottom and they make one with a flat bottom all ready to go for you. This is a beautiful tool. Lastly, here's another one of my favorites. This Spokeshave has an adjustable throat. This part right here, swings open or closed as I turn this thumb screw right here.

And while you may think that on a plane an adjustable throat is good for reducing the amount of tear out that you get in work, in effect though this adjustable throat Spokeshave is handy because this also acts as a depth of cut adjuster as well. So if you get to start taking a shaving off that's too heavy, too light, all you have to do, turn the thumb screw, you're in business. This isn't like your basic set of Spokeshaves because there's all kinds of them, with round bottoms that go one way or the other way, concave, convex. But once you get hooked on Spokeshaves there's no telling where your fancy may fly to.