Strange doings at the hardware store.

[AussieBarney]

I have various jobs coming up that require a reasonably good quality spokeshave, you know them things what you drag along a piece of timber and get a fine sliver of timber with each cut. Good tools to use when the timber is not straight. So.....

I go into store No. 1 and cruise around the hand tool section, no luck, so i bail up the store assistant and ask. I get a blank look and the comment "never heard of that tool", with that he turns his back and ignores me. I walked out shaking my head. Then.....

I go to store No.2 and ask straight away, knowing that I'm not going to find one alone. The Manager of this store tells me that they do not stock exotic, ËXOTIC" tools. Since when have spokeshaves become an exotic tool. I thought they were a basic part of any cabinetmakers tool box.

I ended up getting one at another hardware store. Maybe, It's a sign I'm getting on in years, but, I thought hand tools like this were basic to woodwork, not in this town.

No bloody wonder, basic skills are disappearing these days when you cant even get the tools to practice. I'm not talking about the pieces of jewelry sold out of the back pages of our host magazine, just a basic stanley.

My daddy had six of the mongrel things. My older brother inherited all of the old mans tools and then sold them for a pittance at a yard sale, an action for which, upon our next meeting, I will break his jaw. I have already warned him.

End of Rant

[johnw]

A hammer, now, that's not an exotic tool. He probably knew what that was. He referred to the spokeshave as an exotic tool because he didn't know what it was, and didn't want to admit it.

[Phillip Allen]

Wait til you get to my age, Barney... no telllin what will be exotic by then

[purri]

Barney,

Don't ask 'em for a bill hook or they'll direct you the poultry farm.

[PeterSibley]

Try this bloke, Stanley's from $25 . He's OK, I've bought from him , tools as described and posted quickly.
http://www.toolexchange.com.au/Spokeshaves.html

and if you need anything else ...he's got everything !

[skuthorp]

I have a collection, in my shed, in Victoria, and the way things are shaping we may stay hereabouts a while yet. One of the pleasures of being retired. But the rest of the years budget will suffer.

[P-man]

Some interesting comments from Harry Bryan about hand tools:

http://www.harrybryan.com/harrybryan/news.html.

I had the same problem with my Record spoke shave he describes.

[seanz]

This will be no help to you Barney but I picked up a Stanley #67 spokeshave (good condition too) at a junk shop recently for $35. Just had to tell someone......

[skuthorp]

Until quite recently good used hand tools were available cheaply at our local markets etc, and spokeshaves were amongst the cheapest. Wooden planes, and ruined ones at that have shot up in price but good metal Record, Stanley and Bailey block planes of all sizes are reasonably cheap. Of course the rarer ones are more expensive, but proportionally they were less in demand originally. I prefer to use hand tools when I can, and assembled a comprehensive kit some years ago, but I still look.
This years purchase will be a new grinder with a water bath to hopefully improve my inadequate sharpening skills.

[McMike]

So called cabinet maker here, I know what one is but have only used one once. I have never cut "real" dovetails either and only kind of know how to properly sharpen a chisel. I have used cabinet scrapers, but not much. Hand tolls are to darn slow and the bosses want now not real. We design the work so it can be done with modern tools, quickly. You won't find many familiar hand tools in a modern cabinet shop any more and ours caters to the multi-million dollar homes, so we're not doing easy stuff either.

[bob winter]

It getting harder to find a decent hardware store these days, at least around here. Home Depot, Lowe's and the dreaded Walmart have put most of the small guys out of business and they stock what sells and that does not appear to be much in the way of hand tools.

I am very thankful that I live a few minutes away from Lee Valley. But even LV no longer carry some of the product they did years ago. Try finding a mortice plane, for instance.

[Phillip Allen]

NOT A GUN POST... but I have tastes in my gun hobby which has driven me to the internet to satisfy my shopping needs. I hope the internet will be able to provide the less often purchased tools you guys want

[Paul Pless]

I ended up getting one at another hardware store. Maybe, It's a sign I'm getting on in years, but, I thought hand tools like this were basic to woodwork, not in this town.

I daresay you would not have found a spokeshave at any 'hardware' store here in the states. Maybe a specialty store like Woodcraft. The only place to regularly find a quality old tool like many planes and shaves and chisels is to look in antique stores and flea markets.

[The Bigfella]

Why do you need a spokeshave? Haven't you got a belt sander?

[Paul Pless]

nnn

[Mrleft8]

I almost bought a 12" (Cutting edge length) spoke shave at a tag sale on Saturday.... A Stanley, in V.good condition.... But I thought better of it. I already have 6 or 7 spoke shaves, and I really only ever use 2 of them... And those are the smallest 2....
There were also 2 very nice draw knives, but once again, I only use the one that I've kept every so often, so I really don't need another....

[Bruce Hooke]

This years purchase will be a new grinder with a water bath to hopefully improve my inadequate sharpening skills.

Skip the water bath and just get a slow-speed (1725 RPM) grinder with a good Aluminum Oxide wheel (the pink wheels). My experience with water-bath grinders is that you will grow a beard down to the ground waiting for the !*&@# thing to sharpen anything*. At the same time get a good wheel dresser to true up the wheel. A trued up Aluminum Oxide wheel will not burn the edge of the tool unless you really overdo it. Of course a grinding wheel is just the starting point when sharpening. All the grinding wheel does is get you a rough edge that you then need to refine on a sharpening stone.

*Qualification on my experience with water-cooled grinders: Most of my experience is with Delta's disaster of a water-cooled grinder. I love my other Delta tools but that grinder I'd happily exchange for a pile of cinder blocks. I am sure some of the other water-cooled grinders are better than the Delta but I am still of the opinion that your money would be better spent on a basic slow-speed grinder and some good sharpening stones.

[Bruce Hooke]

I think of a good hardware store as a place to get the kinds of things you use to build and work on and around a typical house (a bad hardware store is a gussied-up housewares store where you can get things like a plug for the kitchen sink and a cute rack to hang up your ties in the closet, and not much else). I cannot think of anything around a typical house that I would do with a spokeshave. I can't even think of a reason to have a spokeshave if you build the kind of cabinetry that goes into a typical house. I use my spokeshaves to do things like make canoe paddles, and canoe-paddle-makers just are not an audience that hardware stores are catering too. So, at least in the US I wouldn't even bother going to a hardware store to look for a spokeshave. If I did see one in a hardware store I'd be deeply suspicious of the quality too since I've encountered some mighty poor spokeshaves over the years and discovered that a poorly made spokeshave might as well be hung up on the wall in a restaurant as decoration because any attempt to actually use it will lead to a severe risk of breaking a window when you hurl the spokeshave across the shop in utter disgust. If you want a spokeshave either figure out where good used tools are sold in your area or order one from a place that caters to people who do bizarre things like make canoe paddles, oars, sculptures, and hand-carved furniture.

[Mrleft8]

+100 on Bruce's observations concerning water bath low speed grinders.
A grinder is for establishing a bevel angle and hollow grind, as well as removing nicks in the edge. A spokeshave blade (iron) needs to be razor sharp, or it'll just be an exercise in frustration. Even more so with a drawknife. I think that I've only reground the edge on my drawknife once or twice in 35 years. Not because I don't use it, but because I don't hit metal or rocks with it, and I don't try to hack half inch thick slabs of wood off of the work piece with it. It's a refined tool, that doesn't look like a refined tool. It is not a two handled hatchet!

[skuthorp]

Thanks Bruce, I have assembled a good set of irons, re-handled some but many really need a proper re-start after a lot of previous abuse, and some I want to sharpen on an angle. A slow speed grinder, I'll look about. Stones and diamond dressing steels I have.

[Shang]

I told the young clerk in the hardware section that I was shopping for a file card.
He directed me to office supplies.
I tried to explain to the clerk that I intended to card files, not file cards.

The funny part is that the store actually did have file cards, but the clerk thought that these were short-haired wire brushes.

[Mrleft8]

I tried to find a file card at the hardware store last week..... I did find them..... In the "Pet Care" section.....

[johnw]

I went into a local store because my cheap old belt sander packed up. Talked to two of their employees, neither of them successfully identified a belt sander by sight. The woman I talked to first went to a palm sander, the guy I talked to second went to a hand planer. Fortunately, there's another hardware store on the island, and they had what I needed, but a store where they have pretty much the full line of DeWalt tools and they can't tell at a glance that they don't have a belt sander? What weird, alternate universe does this store exist in?

[AussieBarney]

Why do you need a spokeshave? Haven't you got a belt sander?

Part of my hobby is to try to develop the skill to use hand tools as my father did. I have a full set of power tools and I find most are too agressive for the task at hand. the job I had for the spokeshave was to clean up the edge of a board after it had been through the bandsaw, the job was finished in about ten minutes, could have been finished in two minutes with belt sander. I would not have had the satisfaction of learning and refining a skill set that is vanishing from the modern world.

Speed is not the focus, my enjoyment of learning and developibng my skill is. I have all day today and the rest of my life to get this project done.

[John Meachen]

I know where I can buy a new spokeshave,in fact I bought one there a couple of years ago.I wish I hadn't.I was finally fed up with my old Stanley 63 not staying adjusted as I wanted,up until I had dropped it and broken off one handle it had been the best round bottom spokeshave I had ever used.i had the handle brazed back on by a very good welder but even he couldn't totally prevent a bit of distortion and the iron wriggled just a touch after the repair.I bought the modern replacement and it just isn't the same,the underside of the handles is missing the recess the older model had and is harder to control.I used the horrible thing for about 40 seconds and went back to the old one while I waited for a suitable candidate to pop up on ebay.I may one day wear down one or other of the older irons to the point where cannibalising the recent bad purchase will mean I get some use out of it.Maybe I should have followed Krenov's recommendation to buy a Kunz.
I don't feel like buying from one of the boutique makers of hand tools but if the ordinary retailers only have mediocre or worse tools they may not be around long.The relatively small number of potential customers are probably not enough to support a specialist and the volume certainly won't interest the big box chains.

[Paul Pless]

I don't feel like buying from one of the boutique makers of hand tools. . .

Why not?

just curious

[Phillip Allen]

Why not?

just curious

speaking for myself... over priced

[Paul Pless]

speaking for myself... over priced

don't you appreciate quality and supporting a craft industry

[Bruce Hooke]

...the iron wriggled just a touch after the repair.

Most likely the area on which the blade rests is a little bit out of true. This can be fixed quite easily with a thin hand file. The nice thing about a spokeshave is that since the amount of steel involved is fairly small the amount of metal that needs to be removed to true things up is fairly small (unlike, say, a jointer (plane)). The down side of spokeshaves is that in my experience some work is almost always necessary to get them working properly. The manufacturing standards applied to spokeshaves seems to be even worse than what is applied to hand planes! Most importantly, on spokeshaves the area on which the blade rests should be smooth and true. Otherwise the blade will chatter or easily shift out of adjustment.

[John Meachen]

Why not?

just curious

I seriously doubt that they would make a round bottom small spokeshave that would be an improvement on the Stanley I originally enjoyed using.If I have to pay several times as much for no real gain I will continue to trawl ebay for old gems.

[StevenBauer]

These Lee Valley contour planes seem like a pretty good value: http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/pag...t=1,50230&ap=1


These are a bit pricey, but not unreasonable. A few hours pay for a carpenter seems OK to me: http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/pag...t=1,50230&ap=1

[Canoeyawl]

These are the best spoke shaves I have ever used...
It works out that your thumbs can adjust the depth of cut, while you are cutting, for a varying curve
This one is in the UK

[Canoeyawl]

Here's a #63 in the UK with a buy it now price of GBP 8.00