What is special about what is on offer at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Australia?
In essence, a spokeshave is an extremely short-soled hand plane with a blade secured in the frame, either bevel-down or bevel-up, and a handle on each side of the blade.
There are multiple designs but their use in all cases is the same, and just like all tools on the market some perform better than others.
They are generally used for smoothing curved surfaces, rounding or chamfering straight, convex, or concave edges, smoothing band-sawn cut shapes, and making round spokes, legs, tenons, or pegs.
They are versatile tools with multiple uses, making them a must-have in any studio.
This blog is about our new offering of the Ironbark Cigar-shaped spokeshave, as well as our regular Boggs and Small Bronze (Preston style) shaves, and I thought it best to explain why.
Small Bronze Ironbark Boggs
1. The three models pictured above all have blades that can be secured and sharpened with our Lie-Nielsen honing guide, this sets them apart from many other makes.
2. They are all bevel-down blades
3. They are all easily adjustable, meaning the blades can be set for the depth of cut and can be tilted slightly with different depths from one side of the mouth to the other, allowing quick stock removal and smoothing in the same set
4. They are all comfortable to hold
5. They can all take very fine shavings for superb finishes
What sets the Ironbark apart from the Lie-Nielsen shaves is the way the blade is secured in the frame, set into dovetailed keys in the brass body at a low angle but with a clearance angle of approx. nine degrees to the front sole, only 4 mm wide allowing for an impressive performance. It can be used as a flat spokeshave or for cutting up to a 7” radius concave, but what is more useful is the ability to smoothly finish a convex curve, without chatter, for example, on the rear of chair seat blanks, which always have end grain to deal with (the Boggs with their unsupported blade tips nearly always chatter here), this the Ironbark’s superpower, no more scrapers and sandpaper. At this angle some species of timber can cause some choking of the chips in the mouth; however, the blade is easily removable for clearance.
Does this do away with the Lie-Nielsen shaves? No, they have advantages as well. They clear chips more efficiently, and they can be skewed at angles up to 45 degrees, allowing the Boggs to fair round chair leg curves or long grain curves in coopering or the saddling and smoothing of a chair seat, where the handles on the Ironbark will get in the way. The Small Bronze shave gets into areas where the Boggs and Ironbark shave handles get in the way.
Do you need all three of the shaves, it always depends on what you need to do, as they all have advantages.
The object was to give you a choice, the Ironbark cigar-shaped shave offers a unique, clever and modern design, doing away with the disadvantages of the old design with the bevel-up blades created to prevent chatter, which is difficult to set and sharpen.
Regards
Anthony
