Veritas spokeshaves...again.

Re: Veritas spokeshaves...again.

Eric Hedberg

>I've had the new Veritas shaves since they first came out and have had a chance to use them and compare them to my stable of "classics". The Veritas shaves are far, far superior to the classics (think chevette vs Mercedes M class). Flawless machining and detail work on them and solid blade mechanics (and a blade adjuster I even like). I have yet to find a piece of work they can't handle. Although I originally was looking at the round bottom, Rob came up with that special deal and I got both. The flat shave turned out to be my favorite. I end up using it like a miniture block plane to trim end grain edges flush. If you intend to use spokeshaves on a regular basis, these are a wise investment you will not regret.

Re: Veritas spokeshaves...again.

John K in Hastings, MN

>I agree, the Veritas shaves are SWEET. I had a 51 and 151 I sold; they can be tuned to be decent (see a recent FWW article) but the Veritas was great out of the box. It's also one of the best looking planes I own. The set is a great deal.

I looked at the Boggs shave (L-N) but couldn't justify the cost.

John

Re: Veritas spokeshaves...again.

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>I also think the flat one is a big favourite of mine. Almost as handy as a block plane.

Re: Veritas spokeshaves...again.

John Horobin

>They are far, far better than the current Record or Stanley offerings. No comparison. I'm glad they have adjusters as I find it makes getting the adjustment just right a lot easier.

John

Re: Veritas spokeshaves...again.

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>The adjusters are a nice feature. I find my flat shave outperforms the Boggs, which is a very, very nice tool. I had an issue with clogging with the round bottomed Veritas, which is being addressed by LV customer service (I love those folks!). There is a suspected problem with the lever cap, and they are sending me another shave.

BUT...comparing these shaves with the metal Stanleys and their knock-offs are a bit like comparing block planes or smoothers with jack planes. Even my curved sole (side-to-side) Kuntz shave works great when I'm transitioning from the draw knife on a chair spindle work piece. Even the Kuntz, generally thought of as a P.O.S., is great when I am knocking off the octagonal facets to make the workpiece round(once I figured out that the factory had ground too steep an angle on the bezel by comparing it with the Stanley's blade.) At this point a shave with a finer throat would gag.

My point is that generally today's woodworkers want a spoke shave for the finer finishing, and belittle the open throated ones. But I believe they have their uses in the stages where you want to remove more wood. You don't expect one plane to do it all, why on earth would you expect one spoke shave to? When your planes act up, you 'tune' them. Why do you sumarily discard a spoke shave when it immediately doesn't do what you want it to? They're a lot simpler to fuss with!

Greg -who is justifying his coll^H^H^H^H lineup of spokeshaves. I own only the essential ones, honest!

My throat clogging (cough) tip (It worked for me)

Eric Hedberg

>Greg,

I initially ran into some clogging on my round bottom version as well (Lee Valley does have great customer service!). My solution was to raise the center slotted screw so that the knurled adjustment screw almost bottomed out when everything was tight. That raised the angle of the lever cap relative to the blade and seemed to deflect better the stickier(?) shavings. I haven't had any noteable problems since with the shave. I love fine shavings, but on certain curves in certain woods I end up with fluffy short shavings that seem to stick like burrs. I don't know if your experience is the same, but I suspect a lot has to do with the end grain you encounter on curves. Let me know how it turns out. Eric

ordered 'em today! thanks guys.

marketymarkmark

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