Spokeshave - Which Kind?

[liquid_gabe]

I've seen spokeshaves with concave and convex blades, and with flat or curved bottoms. Which do I want for shaping a neck?

Also, looking to the left of this field I'm typing in I begin to wonder, which smilie? ...gotta go with peace.

[j. pierce]

I'm sure others will chime in, but I did two necks with a flat bottomed, flat bladed spoke shave, it properly sharpened, it worked great. Roughed out the neck with files and rasps at both the heel and headstock and used the spokeshave to join them up along the length of the neck. Since then, I've also gotten one with a concave blade, (from LMI) which works wonderfully, but I find I still like the flat bladed one - it might take a little longer, because less blade is touching the wood, but I since the neck shapes I was working on where more broad and flat rather than really round, it allowed me a little more control in achieving that.

I also worked with one with a flat blade and a curved bottom - about the only place this seemed to have an advantage over the other two spoke shaves was in shaping the heel, (since the curved bottom allowed it to cut in those inside curves) but you need to make sure it's sharpened and tuned well since you're planing end grain there. I prefer rasps and files and surforms for the heel, so I never ended up purchasing one of these for myself.

Again, I'm not the most experienced, but that's my take on it. They're great tools to have around though, worth picking one up, IMO.

[Southpa]

Whatever you use to make it work is fair game, IMO. I only have one flat spokeshave and it only plays a part of my neck shaping process. I found the most valuable hand tool(s) in that area are the flat, round and half round rasps.

[Mattia]

Flat spokeshave. But since mine is lousy, with a very, very bad quality steel blade that's near impossible to get sharp, let alone keep sharp, and I've discovered the joys of rasps, microplanes, and shinto rasps, it doesn't get used much. A half-round rasp (or a cabinetmaker's rasp) is fantastically useful. I'm waiting for a pair of hand-cut german rasps right now. I'll let you know if they're better than my mass produced Sandvik/Bahco ;-)

[wardd]

I agree with the guys above.

I bought a flat bladed spokeshave, but quickly put it down in favor of rasps and files.

You just need to be careful not to tear up edges with too aggressive rasping.

The univeral woodworking truth applies: GO SLOW!!!

Good Luck,

d ward