sexybeast Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 A friend of mine sharpened my chisels for me and I got to use them last night. That was the first time I've ever used a truly sharp chisel and now I'm hooked on cutting tools. Man, the wood just came off l ike butter and the tool left clean wood and smooth lines. So now I want to buy a drawshave I saw at Menards for about 13 bucks. Would it be worth it or should I wait and buy a more expensive tool? Budget's a real concern. Also, are hand planes fron second-hand and antique shops usually worth restoring? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sambo Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 By drawshave do you mean a spokeshave or a drawknife? never heard of anything called a drawshave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 What you want is a spokeshave.. same principle as a draw knife in that you pull it, but the drawknife is just a blade and you can cut very deep with it.. The spokeshave you set the opening between the blade and the handle to let just enough wood through and you have a ton more control. Works like a plane in that regard. I have never restored a plane.. there are a few guys here that made their own planes, and a good plane is a great tool. I had a neck blank made of 3 quartersawn strps of maple, 5 thick at the peghead end and in my clamping I got abou 1/8 " twist in it.. I bought a 10 dollar plane from home depot and about 15 minutes of elbow grease I had the neck completely trued up and smooth on one side so i could route the truss rod channel and prepare the fingerboard for attachment. I didn't even sharpen it.. Probably would have been only 5 minutes of elbow grease if I had taken the time to hone it. Another thing you will want if you like cutting tools is a set of cabinet scrapers.. I bought a pack of 3 (straight, french curve and convex/concave) for 16 something at woodcraft. They are invaluable. You can tweak your carving with them, or use them as a final smoothing step to stay away from the sand paper. scratchless, glass smooth surfaces.. But if you like the hand tools, i'd make sure to have the chisels, spokeshave, a couple of planes and some scrapers handy and you can do just about anything. oh.. and don't forget a couple of good rasps. You can rough in a tummy contour in about 5 minutes.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 I mean a drawknife. I'd never heard the term "Drawshave" until I saw it in the store. It's the same thing, different name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 A drawknife is a great tool for roughing things in, but you definitely want a lot of experience before taking it to anything critical. It's very easy to catch the grain and tear out much more wood than you planned on taking out. Work with the runout whenever possible, but when working against it take LIGHT cuts. I'd definitely recommend a spokeshave instead for most guitar work. If it's a good quality plane, it's definitely worth the time to fix up. You can get some pretty beat up stanleys that clean up real nice and work good with a little lovin'. I'm sure there are resources out there on the net that go through plane set-up and truing the sole. Just the other day my father was going through some stuff and found a #5 in a box full of cast iron cookware. It was pretty rough, and I already have a #5, so I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the time cleaning it up. After spraying all the dust off, I started disassembling the plane. Much to my delight, I discovered somebody had put a replacement (hock ?) blade in there. It was a little pitted with rust, and nicked, but it's cleaning up real good now. I can't wait to get it together. One thing about the new blade is how hard it is. It took FOREVER to regrind it back to where it needed to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 If you hit google there are a bunch of sites dedicated to antique tools and their care and restoation. A good hand plane with all its parts in decent shape (all relative) isn't hard to turn into a good working tool. A crap plane in excellent shape is a bear to tune and work with. I recently picked up a really abused Stanley No6 for $5 US. The blade cost me another 35 and it took me about three hours to completely tweak it out. It takes off curls of wood that you can almost see through with little effort. Stanley, Bailey, names like that are usually worth it if there are no broken parts. You Brits had a bunch of small toolmakers that produced decent stuff. Missing parts are readily available, but can cost more than a new plane. For eye candy visit the Lie-neilson toolworks site. Remember that his planes today cost about the same thing that a first class Stanley did at the turn of the 19th century, in woodworkers dollars. Fine Woodworking magazine has run numerous articles on how to rework and tune planes. And finally, its not hard to make a wooden plane. JAmes Krenov's books talk about doing this. All you need is a blade. There truly is no comparison to a surface left by a sharp blade and one fuzzed up by the finest sandpaper available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 It makes sense that a spokeshave would be easier to control, what with the throat and all. The chisel got away from me a bit last night and I had to file away a gouge mark. That said, is a 13 dollar bladed tool worth it or should I pass? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 It makes sense that a spokeshave would be easier to control, what with the throat and all. The chisel got away from me a bit last night and I had to file away a gouge mark. That said, is a 13 dollar bladed tool worth it or should I pass? ← I think you just have to look at it and see if it's worth it.. cheap metal won't hold an edge like the good stuff. Woodcraft sells spokeshaves for 15 bucks that look ok.. they are chinese made. But my buddy's spokeshave that i borrow from time to time is a 100 dollar instrument.. carved maple thing with a really nice blade in it with thumb screw adjustments.. My philosophy is to get the best thing you can afford, and go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 Sounds like good advice. I'll wait on it fot a while. Here's a laugh. Anyone made a neck pocket with chisels? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 Sounds like good advice. I'll wait on it fot a while. Here's a laugh. Anyone made a neck pocket with chisels? ← You might be surprised.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 I wouldn't be surprised at all, to be honest. I put the laughing icon there because we have access to so many power tools nowadays I was almost sure that nobody'd done it lately. Do you think I should give it a try? I'm decent with a chisel and I really hate routers. Almost seems like a no-brainer but I know how useful a router can be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 i dont' know what to tell you. I am not precise with a chisel.. I can freeform carve with one though. Some guys can make flawless dovetails and mortise/tenon joints with nothing but chisels and hand saws.. i'm not one of thsoe folks so i'll stick to my router and templates There is somethign really enjoyable about using hand tools though.. carving is my favorite part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Alex Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 I wouldn't be surprised at all, to be honest. I put the laughing icon there because we have access to so many power tools nowadays I was almost sure that nobody'd done it lately. Do you think I should give it a try? I'm decent with a chisel and I really hate routers. Almost seems like a no-brainer but I know how useful a router can be. ← give it a try, but practise on scrap first(the harder the better it seems). I chiselled out the neck pocket on my guitar the other day, wood was a little soft and i didn't keep the blades as sharp as I usually do, so the wood chipped towards the bottom of the pocket. in my experience a 3/4" chisel seems easiest, my 1" was too big really for clean work. and you'll probably want 2x3/4" chisels so you dont have to stop as often for sharpening. I hate routers, still dont have one after 2 years of messin' with guitars(far too many bad experiences with a non plunging one I borrowed from a carpenter, it kept kicking when i switched it on, made a big mess, but tahnkfully it was a mod to my strat UNDER the pickguard!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marzocchi705 Posted May 4, 2005 Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 Sounds like good advice. I'll wait on it fot a while. Here's a laugh. Anyone made a neck pocket with chisels? ← I have, the whole shebang, no router touched my neck pocket. Pics in this thread http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...topic=14492&hl= I dont advise cutting a neck pocket with out a jig and/or template, i got lucky with this, i can hold the guitar by the neck with no bolts, it could have easyily gone bad. That guitar was made with no power tools (well a drill press, and i tidyed the bottom of my p'up cavitys abut with a router). It was a lot of fun, but for the next one im using any tool at my disposal. Spokeshaves are fun tools to work with, i prefer my rasps, surforms and files tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted May 4, 2005 Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 Sounds like good advice. I'll wait on it fot a while. Here's a laugh. Anyone made a neck pocket with chisels? ← Yeah, every single one i do, whats ya point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted May 4, 2005 Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 Sounds like good advice. I'll wait on it fot a while. Here's a laugh. Anyone made a neck pocket with chisels? ← Yeah, every single one i do, whats ya point? ← Why? Don't like routers? Just curious, your guitars seem flawless so I'm not questioning your methods. Just wondered Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 (edited) Marzocchi705, Nice work! I love SG's, mostly because I grew up listening to Angus Young. I'm waiting to get the rest of my chisels back and I'm really considering having a go at this thing by hand. My router bits all suck and I would have to dig all of that stuff up anyway.(I'm packed up and moving soon.) Any advice on chisel technique? Edited May 4, 2005 by sexybeast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted May 4, 2005 Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 Spokeshaves are fun tools to work with, i prefer my rasps, surforms and files tho. ← There's much more of a learning curve with cutting tools, but for almost every application, I think blades are FAR superior when used properly. One good example is switching from heavy use of sandpaper to using scrapers. Scrapers test your patience to begin with (mostly figuring out how to sharpen correctly), but once they've been mastered, they give you a superior finish, save you time, and save you money that would be spent on abrasives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marzocchi705 Posted May 4, 2005 Report Share Posted May 4, 2005 Marzocchi705, Nice work! I love SG's, mostly because I grew up listening to Angus Young. I'm waiting to get the rest of my chisels back and I'm really considering having a go at this thing by hand. My router bits all suck and I would have to dig all of that stuff up anyway.(I'm packed up and moving soon.) Any advice on chisel technique? ← Thanks. When chiseling, make thin but dark lines of whatever you want to cut out (in this case a neck pocket). If you have a pillar drill, drill out most of the pocket to the total depth of your pocket, minus one milimeter. That will make it easyer. If you dont, take your chisel to almost the line, just a bit away (like .5mm) and push down, do this round the whole pocket. Now make marks a bit deaper than you just made (if you can) parralel (i know not possible as the sides are taperd but you know what i mean) with the long edges of you pocket 1 chisel width apart. now remove the waste wood between the marks. Repeat untill Final depth is gained. I used a hand router to clean the bottom of my pocket, but you may not have one. Im a bit tierd right now, had a stressful day, so if anything is unclear just say. That guitar was designed so i could have an SG shape that i liked, the top half of an SG is deadly, the bottom half looks like it was destend for good things, but got squashed in prosess, all IMO of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted May 5, 2005 Report Share Posted May 5, 2005 Why? Don't like routers? Just curious, your guitars seem flawless so I'm not questioning your methods. Just wondered ← Rough it out with a router, make it perfect with chisels. I dont have a "model" so EVERY guitar ive ever made is totally different to the others. So, until i make a universal neck pocket routing jig , i finish them by hand. I also prefer hand tools, i feel i have more control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2005 Thanks for the advice. I'm going to practice on scrap for a while until I'm satisfied. Until then I'll refine the body curves with rasps and files. The first few were done with a belt sander but they had no life and it was hard to get it to remove stock the way I liked. The hand tools, however, are doing a spectacular job. Pictures to be posted as soon as I get my stupid digital camera to work. You have to hit it just right and I seem to have lost my touch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted May 5, 2005 Report Share Posted May 5, 2005 And if you didn't want to rough the neck pocket out with a router.. get a couple of forstner bits and use a drill press.. They will leave a clean hole and you can get out the bulk and just use the chisel to remove the last 1/8 to 1/16 of wood up to the perimeter. Rasps are indispensable for shaping body curves.. I tried doing contours on a bandsaw but there's too much room for error without some kind of jig.. With the rasps, I can get it perfect every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexybeast Posted May 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2005 Yeah, I was surprised at hiw much control I had, even when I was ripping out huge amounts of stock. The lines still come out nice and crisp and for some feelng I feel as though they have more "life", as if the guitar is more dynamic. I'm still about 50/50 on wether or not it'll be playable when it's done, but that's up from 90/10. I'll take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backwoodsguitars Posted May 29, 2005 Report Share Posted May 29, 2005 Heres a tip! If you decide to go for it and chisel out a neck pocket, do it in a piece of lumber not the whole body. This way if you make a mistake you have not ruined a whole body. If you make the pocket perfect you can then join "wings" on your piece that already has the perfect neck pocket (kind of like a neck thru). You could even wait on truing up the side of the center piece (for glueing) until the pocket is cut. Hope this makes sense Backwoods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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