: I like to use a spoke shave, but it can be a bear. The blade needs to be
: really sharp. Most come already ground but need to be honed on a 1000
: water stone. A oil stone will work, need to do the flat side first and
: make sure there are no grind marks left on the blade, then do the angle, a
: jig to hold the blade while you sharpen helps.

: When sharp, set the blade shallow and move it slowly until it just starts to
: bite. I like to push mine, some like to pull it. Try and keep the frame
: flat to the surface and hold a slight angle in relation to the direction
: of the cut. The easiest cut to make is triming the stem, a concave place
: on the hull is the hardest in my book. I put the blade in with the angle
: facing down, I believe.

It would help to know what kind of a spokeshave you have, because there are many different blade shapes. Some of them have strongly curved blades, which makes them optimal for getting into concave areas. However, the most commonly available spokeshaves have straight blades. If sharpened and shaped correctly, these can be used on mildly concave surfaces. Sharpening spokeshave blades is rather difficult because they are so short. Using a small pair of vice-grips to hold the blade can help things considerably. However, since the advent of diamond sharpening stones I have been putting the blade in a vice, doing the initial sharpening with a very fine file or a piece of sandpaper glued to a flat piece of wood and then honing with a very fine diamond stone. For working on boats I always modify the blade to a very shallow curve so that the corners are not exposed and only the middle of the blade cuts when the blade is properly set. The best quality spokeshaves have two screw-adjusts for setting the blade depth and another in the middle of the blade. The one in the middle of the blade is for slightly warping the blade into a slight concave curve to increase its cutting efficiency. By the way, the flat side of the blade is UP !!!, like a smoothing plane, not down, like a block plane. Also, chattering is a symptom of trying to take to deep a cut.

I use a spokeshave every day making chairs for my furniture business. Properly set up and sharpened they eat wood or epoxy at an amazing rate. If you learn to use one of these properly along with cabinet scrapers, both flat and gooseneck for the concave areas, you will cut your sandpaper use by 95% and get the job done much faster. Perhaps more importantly, it will drastically reduce the amount of wood and epoxy dust that ends up in your lungs.

Smiley Shields