I recently bought a couple spokeshaves from a tool dealer. I really only wanted the metal one in the picture below, but they came as a pair. I'll write soon about that shave, but today's post is about the wooden spokeshave.
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| A couple of spokeshaves |
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| The aft end |
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| The front end, showing the "Clark Tool Co." mark |
This spokeshave has the mark "Clark Tool Co." on the front (stamped upside down, oddly). I was unable to find any information about this company. They could be an original manufacturer or possibly a hardware store that put their own name on somebody else's tools. If anybody knows, please leave a comment.
The spokeshave body looks to me like maple, though the seller says beech. It is 11 1/8" total length, about 7/8" thick top to bottom and 1 3/8" front to back. The iron's cutting edge is 3 1/16" long. The body's shape is typical of wooden spokeshaves that I have seen, with the exception of the thumbscrews - probably not a new feature to many of you, but new to me.
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| Bottom |
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| Top |
The ends of the iron are mortised into the body and the tangs are threaded so that the iron can be raised or lowered using the twin thumbscrews on the top side. As is often the case with old tools, the threads did not match one of today's standards, so I couldn't chase them to clean them up.
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| The iron and brass |
Here are some details about the thumb screws. They are attached to the football-shaped brass plates by curling up the bottom cylindrical part of the screw. The brass plates are tightly mortised and screwed into the body.
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| Details of the thumb screws |
The iron and body are curved in two directions. Two pics above, you can see different facets on the brass wear plate as it had been filed to create a curve front-to-back. The brass was also clearly filed side-to-side to match the lateral curvature of the iron. As found, the wear plate had more curvature than the iron and didn't match it very well. I filed it a bit to even them up.
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| A straightedge resting on the iron shows the slight lateral curvature |
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| The right side of the wear plate had been filed more than the left side |
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| Filing the wear plate to get it to match the lateral curve of the iron |
Here's where the shave was in need of some significant work. The write-up in the tool dealer's site said it was "
in sound worker shape". I guess our definitions of sound worker shape are somewhat different. Check out the cutting edge of the iron!
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| Nice mountain range on the cutting edge |
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| The bevel side of the iron shows the condition fairly well |
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| Close-up of the middle portion of the iron's beveled edge |
The back side was easy enough to clean with some sandpaper and diamond paddles. A nice thing is that the back is slightly hollow front to back. This allows a diamond paddle (held perpendicular to the iron's edge) to rest on the front and back edges and the work goes more quickly.
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| Fairly shiny after just a little work |
The bevel side needed significantly more work to get the jagged cutting edge back to raw metal. In the next pic, I've started the process of rehabbing the cutting edge. You can see a thin line of shiny metal at the cutting edge, but there's still a LOT of roughness. As the caption notes, the rear part of the bevel side is raised and I was able to rest sanding sticks and sharpening paddles on the bevel and the raised area to get a reasonably consistent bevel as I ground the edge down.
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| The bevel side has a raised portion at the back that helped a lot |
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| Pic shows how the paddle rests on both the raised area and the bevel |
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| Finally, a sharp iron! |
At this point I had to give it a try.
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| First shavings in a VERY soft wood - so far, so good |
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Next a 3/4" wide edge of a harder wood and look at those chatter marks!
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This is a problem I have with all my spokeshaves. I can't seem to get rid of chatter. I tried skewing the shave, taking a shallower cut, resharpening the iron and I don't get much improvement. Need to look into this more.
Speaking of resharpening, I had to touch up the iron after a few dozen passes over a piece of wood. My guess is that this iron won't hold up to hard work. I'll evaluate it as I use it and may have to re-harden and temper it.
Finally, for the body, I scraped off the old finish, sanded, and put on a few coats of shellac. Normally BLO is my go-to finish for wooden tools, but I thought I'd do something different with this one because it looked like the finish was originally something other than oil. Time will tell if I like the shellac finish or not.
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| And there she is |
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| Bottom side |
This tool cleaned up very nicely. I love how easy it is to adjust the iron and I also think the slightly curved iron will prove to be a great feature. Keeping it sharp could be a challenge.
I have the same chattering hiccup with my spokeshaves except for the Boggs one. I don't seem to have any troubles using that one but the Stanleys make me feel like I don't opposable thumbs.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's frustrating. Perhaps your Boggs shave is simply made better and tuned properly. A few years ago I tried tuning my Marples 151 clone by flattening the bed and sole, mating the lever cap with iron, etc., but still never had great success. I have used it a lot, but rarely get a nice smooth surface.
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ReplyDeleteLook back into the Ohio Tool Co. I recall that there was a Clark who had a tool co. of his own then went onto being a principal in Ohio and Auburn Tool.All of this would be from last quarter of the 1800's.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bob. That took me down a long rabbit hole. Apparently Casey, Clark and Co. was a precursor to Auburn Tool and Auburn merged with Ohio Tool in 1893. As far back as 1858, there was a C. H. Clark who was superintendent at Ohio Tool, but I could find no information whether that Clark or the Clark from Casey, Clark and Co. had anything to do with Clark Tool Co. (info from timetestedtools.net and davistownmuseum.org). Maybe another day will bring more research into this.
DeleteI was gifted the exact same spokeshave last week. Mine is a different species of wood and doesn’t have the same makers markings as yours, but otherwise identical. After a little cleanup I found a triangle shape with three initials carved inside the triangle. Either VLJ or HIJ or some combination of that. Possibly a manufacturer or owner? There is also a Roman numeral VIII carved into the wood. The iron is in pretty rough shape. It’ll take a lot of work to make it perform again. I’d love to know more about this spokeshave. It really is a beautiful tool. Have you found any additional information?
DeleteThe style of that spokeshave seems modern to me, as in post 70s early 1980s. There has been a resurgence on hand tools woodworking, specifically green woodworking/chairmaking and as a result a few small companies pop up to make and sell woodshaves. I do not think that Clark is related to Casey Clark and Co. Ill have a look at my books
ReplyDeleteBob
Thanks for the info, Bob. I would be surprised if the spokeshave was from the 1970's or '80's. The one piece iron, with threaded tangs suggests older to me. I would have thought that by the 1970's people would screw a piece of all-thread into tapped holes in the iron. Further, the non-standard thread pitch also indicates an older shave. What do you think?
DeleteI think you are correct. Found it on page 61 of Tom Lamond book. but unfortunately not much info, but exactly as yours.
ReplyDeleteBob
Thanks for looking that up, Bob. I'd never heard of Lamond's book, but did a little searching and it looks like it's a very well respected resource.
DeleteIt is the more definitive book on the subject so far. Not cheap, about US $100 but worth it and of course i have it :-). Ill see if i can send you pics of the entries on your shaves.
ReplyDeleteBob
That would be most welcome. Thanks.
DeleteI was gifted the exact same spokeshave last week. Mine is a different species of wood and doesn’t have the same makers markings as yours, but otherwise identical. After a little cleanup I found a triangle shape with three initials carved inside the triangle. Either VLJ or HIJ or some combination of that. Possibly a manufacturer or owner? There is also a Roman numeral VIII carved into the wood. The iron is in pretty rough shape. It’ll take a lot of work to make it perform again. I’d love to know more about this spokeshave. It really is a beautiful tool. Have you found any additional information?
ReplyDeleteNo, JF, no further info other than what Bob's (The Valley Woodworker) comments revealed. Very interesting that yours had a Roman # VIII. Although I didn't show it specifically, mine has a Roman # XIIII in the throat. You can see it in one of the pics above (pic #4) if you look closely. It looks like it was chopped in with a small chisel. Congrats on your new tool. I hope it serves you well for years to come.
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