Pattern maker's shave

[AndyT]

I bought this yesterday and thought people might be interested to see it.

I quite like some user-made tools which don't fit into obvious categories. I'd say this was a wooden spokeshave, but it works like a metal one, with a cutter pitched like a plane iron. It's made of mahogany with a neatly inset brass plate.

There's a slight radius to the sole:

The iron is from an old style of spindle moulder tooling:

I think the shaping of the mortice and abutments is particularly nicely done:

as is the corresponding shape of the wedge:

The preceding pictures are all as it was when I bought it. I have now sharpened it so it can appear for the obligatory shaving shot:

Have I wasted my money or is this a rather nice little thing?

 

[Racers]

That's a very nice tool, can you turn the blade around and use it as a scraper?

Pete

 

[bugbear]

There's a cooper's tool very similar to that, the name of which escapes me, lacking a workplace copy of Salaman.

But it looks like this:

Apart from the cooper's version having the wings narrowed down into handles, they appear functionally identical;

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

Found in a certain 1928 Marples Catalogue...

A Coopers plated heading swift.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

That's a very nice tool, can you turn the blade around and use it as a scraper?

Pete

That's an interesting thought... I popped down to the workshop and had a go.

The answer is yes, sort of - it cleaned up this bit of softwood quite nicely - but makes dust which jams up behind the edge, not the sort of mini-shavings you get from a hand scraper with a turned edge. It did feel quite controlled in use though.

Edit: this picture, with the blade fitted bevel down, does look more 'intended' to my eye:

 

[AndyT]

BB - good spot, how did I forget that? Maybe because I had started thinking of this as a small-scale precise sort of tool. (Yes, I know that coopers' work was amazingly precise, but I mean that they were more concerned with removing wood quickly and economically of effort, so I assume a swift would soon fill the floor with shavings.)

Good source of info too! :lol: