henrypig said:
Pablo - I'm curious, given that you were using spokeshaves in a work environment, how often you sharpened the blades? What did you use? Do you have any opinion on the new PM-V11 steel (or others, for that matter) in spokeshaves? Thanks.
I think I probably sharpened the iron perhaps three times in two days or so when I was doing those eight hour spokeshave marathons. We had some sort of stone, always immersed in water, but I don't think it was a Japanese waterstone. Frankly, a lot of details of what I used to do have slipped from my memory. When I was younger I thought, "I will always remember this", but it just isn't so. I think the stone was probably some repurposed stone, possibly from a wet grinder of some sort.
I don't have an opinion of PM-V11. I'd never heard of it. I googled it just minutes ago, and from the Veritas literature it sounds nice. I didn't take the time to find out if they have irons for 151's, so I don't know. We just used stock parts. I never had any chattering problems, so I feel just fine with the irons that Stanley
used to provide.
I broke one spokeshave a year. We were all very good at not dropping them; or throwing out a boot to break the fall, but we spent too much time over the target not to have the occasional mishap. The last one to break just came apart in my hands actually.
Jackhammer operators (which I've been) will know that when the palms of the hands bruise it doesn't show, but it hurts. That happened to me sometimes on big production runs, and it isn't pleasant, but I still loved making chairs! I wouldn't have traded it for any other job at the time.
I've never used any shave but the 151 and the Record equivalent. I don't like the look of the wood handled ones. I don't mean aesthetically, but I like to curl my fingers into that hollow underneath the handles. I feel this gives me control. The round ones look to me like their use would resemble handling round chopsticks, which is difficult. The 151 also has cool thumb "nests" at the after end of the shave. My index finger was extended onto that bridge portion the nose a lot for control.
A thicker aftermarket iron, which I'm sure are available, would require me to thin the bridge even more to give a good size mouth. I'm not sure I'd want to do that.
That's all for now.
Paul
