Wooden body spokeshaves -- The boxwood shave in the middle was made in Scotland. I purchased it in England for five pounds and restored the shoe which was badly worn. The beech shave on the right has brass depth adjusting nuts and a brass wear strip. It has a round bottom for working inside curved surfaces. The rosewood shave on the left was shop made using a Ron Hock blade which has been cryogenically treated to improve the wear characteristics of the steel. I reinforced the shoe with a brass wear strip which was carefully lapped to provide a two degree clearance angle from back to front and inserted flat head screws under the blade to allow micro-adjustments to be made to the depth of cut.
Stanley made a number of wooden body razor edge spokeshaves, so called because the cutter iron was concave, much like a straight razor, and could be easily honed by laying the cutter flat on a sharpening stone. This boxwood Stanley #84 razor edge spokeshave had an adjustable iron shoe to regulate depth of cut and a cutter iron bracket which could be moved in or out to regulate the opening.
Metal spokeshaves -- The spokeshave
at the bottom of the photo is a Stanley #51 while the one at
the top with an adjustable throat is a Stanley #53.
More spokeshaves -- The shave at the top of the photo with a rounded bottom is a Martins. The other two are the common and popular Stanley #151 with depth adjustment screws.
Two concave spokeshaves -- The concave spokeshave at the bottom is a Stanley #55. The other shave is a Stanley #60 which had both a straight and concave cutter.
The Stanley #67 Universal Spokeshave came with two bottoms, one round and one flat. The rosewood handles contained a threaded metal stud which could attach to the body of the spokeshave on either side or from above in what I call the cheese cutter location. These two shaves each have a patent date of February 25, 1895 stamped on the cutter blade.
Another classic spokeshave is the Millers Falls #1 which is often called the cigar shave because of its shape. The amount of mouth opening is controlled by rotating the semi-tubular cutter toward or away from the flat area in front of the cutter. The rosewood handles can be unscrewed from either side to allow the barrel to fit into small openings.
This instrument makers shave is very small -- the bronze body with a rounded bottom measures only 3 1/2" from tip to tip and the cutter is less than an inch wide.
The Stanley #66 beading tool wasn't really a spokeshave but it looks like one so I will include it on this page. It was used to apply decorative detail to a piece under construction by scraping rather than cutting. It has two edge guides, one straight and one curved. It came with 7 cutters, but others were often made by the craftsman using a blank which came with the tool, or by grinding a piece of an old saw or hacksaw blade.
Drawknives -- The knife in the center is not marked, but I believe it to be American made. The knife at the top is a Greenlee, and the one at the bottom with red handles and a curved blade is German made.
Some of the better drawknifes had folding handles to protect the edge in a tool box. This one is marked J. S. Cantelo, Boston.
A set of chamfer guides could be clamped to the drawknife to aid in cutting a 45 degree chamfered edge on a piece under construction. This set was made in the late 1880's.
A scorp, or inshave as it was often called, was used to hollow out the concave portion of a chair seat, or to scoop out the center of a bowl used to hold rising bread dough.
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