How To Sharpen A Spokeshave Blade

With the simple jig described in.

How to sharpen a spokeshave blade. The blades used in daves shaves spokeshaves are flat side to side iethey have zero sweep. I actually taught myself to freehand sharpen on spokeshave blades and built up confidence with them because their short length makes them easier to balance on the bevel there is less weight trying to make the blade fall flat. You may need to sharpen the spokeshave blade quite often for your work to be flawless. The body of spokeshave blade appears to be flat across but there are exceptions.

If you have only one spokeshave then you can simply hone to a more polished level as needed. Most of the original antique spokeshave blades have a slight side to side curvature or sweep. You can always sharpen it freehand but that is quite a skill to perform and not everyone is an expert. To set the cutting iron depth when sharpening a spokeshave use the two adjusters one at a time to lower or retract the blade until it looks parallel to the sole of the spokeshave when looking along the sole of the spokeshave from the front edge.

The average cast iron spokeshave is a fairly rough affair as it comes from the factory. Sharpen the blade the procedure is the same as it is for plane irons but before re installing the blade in the spokeshave take a look at the ramp where it beds. Often the spokeshave arrives in a shape that it needs to sharpen even before your first use. Ed pirnik cari delahanty.

This makes them easy to sharpen and touch up. Although the methods used to sharpen most spokeshaves are like those used to sharpen handplane irons the blades are much smaller and tricky to hold in a conventional honing guidewhen faced with this problem fine woodworking contributor chris gochnour engineered a simple wooden blade holder that mounts easily into any standard honing guide. Paul shows how to make a handy holder which helps to hold spokeshave blades securely when sharpening and can also be used in a honing guide if needed. The yellow paddle is 120 grit.

This will help you get a very sharp edge on. I keep one spokeshave with a blade with a coarser sharpening for the roughing out work. This is coarse enough for corrective work but for most work this may well be sufficient for establishing a cutting edge too. Hi paul my experience with spokeshave blades is contradictory to yours.