veritas spokeshaves bevel up or down?

Re: veritas spokeshaves bevel up or down?

John K in Hastings, MN

>Rule of thumb is that the manufacturer's mark is UP. Bevel up if I recall right.

John

Bevel down

Christopher Schwarz

>Actually, it's bevel down against the work for the new Veritas and other Stanley 151-style shaves. The Veritas low-angle shave and wooden shaves are bevel-up tools.

An easy way to remember is that the traditional metal-bodied shave has the same 45� pitch (generally) as a bench plane, a bevel-down tool.

If you put the bevel up in the shave the mouth will be way too gappy and the angle of attack will be way too high � around 70�. You'll know immediately that the blade should be flipped.

Chris

Re: Bevel down

Sanford Levy

>Thanks Chris, I guess I should have tried it both ways before asking. Now that you mention it, it is pretty obvious once you try to install it both ways! Tomorrow I will get to work making a few curves with them. Sanford

Re: Bevel down

Tony - Memphis

>I took a Ball & Claw carving class from Phil Lowe a couple of summers ago. In the class, Phil teaches you the whole cabriole leg making technique. He also showed us how to sharpen up our spokeshaves as a couple of us had brand new ones. Mine was an oldy, but I felt it could stand to be sharpened trying Phil's method. So I sharpened it up, put it back together and started working my leg. Phil sees me having some difficulty and stops at my bench...remarks that I have a nice oldie of a shave there, then says ever so humbly..."You know, I really prefer to put my iron in the other way!" I didn't know, and still don't - I have to look. I was impressed with his lack of ego and merely suggesting that I flip it over to the correct orientation! Anyway, I got a chuckle out of that experience. Phil is a great guy and great instructor too.

Tony