Revamping a broken spokeshave

June 16th, 2009 in blogs

Mike Flaim, contributor

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My antique spokeshave that fell off the bench. It's days are over.

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I was working in my shop a few days ago when I heard something fall of my bench and hit the floor. Sure enough it was my antique Sheffield spokeshave that I have been using constantly for the past 15 years laying on the floor with a broken handle. The handle broke a few years earlier but I just glued it back in place with some yellow glue back then. Unfortunately the break was more pronounced this time and a small sliver of wood was missing from the end. I looked on my shop floor for several minutes looking for the sliver but to no avail.

My first thought was "Great, now I have to buy another spokeshave." But after a couple of minutes of crying in my beer I realized "Wait a minute, I'm a woodworker, I'll just make a new body!" So I grabbed a piece of cherry I had lying around and started to mill it out.

The process of making a new body was quite simple. I simply laid out the broken spokeshave on top of the scrap wood and traced around the profile. I then took it over to the band saw and rough cut the shape. I then took it to my bench and refined curves with files and rasps so it matched the original. For the mouth opening I sawed several kerfs and popped out the middle with a chisel.

After the body had been shaped I used the original spokeshave as a template again and marked where the holes went for the blade. I drill 5/16" holes with a 7/16" counterbore 14" deep through the body. I then placed the brass wing nuts and plate on top of the holes and scribed the profile with an Exacto knife and pared away the recess with a couple of small chisels.

Once I fine tuned all the parts of the spokeshave and sharpened the blade I made a few test cuts to see how it performed. Luckily it cut just as well as it did before. After a couple of coats of Danish oil, I have a new spokeshave that should last just as long as the old one did and it didn't cost me a cent.