I ordered up a Hock Spokeshave Kit. This was a high quality Hock blade, the necessary hardware and a pre-drilled and milled Bubinga blank.
Images from my Hock kit build are below Info about kit is available at Hock site Mike Morton has a video about the kit build I had so much fun making the kit that I ordered the Veritas hardware kit to make a couple of smaller wooden spokeshaves. In the Veritas kit you create the wooden blank yourself.
|
|
The #KSP062 kit consist of...
|
 |
The brass wear plate had to prepped for proper gluing. Using magnets, I stuck a sheet of 220 grit onto the Powermatic 66 cast iron top. I then sanded the backside of the plate. |
 |
After a minute, the backside showed cupping in the center. |
|
After a couple more minutes, the back was flat and properly scored so that the epoxy glue would adhere well.
|
 |
I chose a double-tube epoxy that had a 5 minute work time. |
 |
To prep the wooden blank, I centered the plate and placed tape to mark where the ends of the plate would be. |
 |
Epoxy glue was brushed on the the wood and the plate.
|
 |
Seating the brass wear strip. |
 |
Applying the caul...I strayed from the excellent Hock directions here...I used a caul that would touch the wood as well as the brass plate. I felt like it made for a good clamping surface. I was hoping that I was not overlooking something...and hoping that I would not regret my decision later. |
 |
Applying consistent clamping pressure but not overly tight. |
 |
After the unit was clamped up I realised the immediate error of the wider caul. I was not able to reach into the depths of the ware area to effectively clean out the epoxy glue squeeze out with denatured alcohol. This made for more work later. I should have followed instructions to the letter.
|
 |
View of the sandwich from the front. |
 |
After letting the glue-up sit overnight, I unclamped the unit. I used the same 220 grit sandpaper setup on the cast iron table and sanded the wood and brass wear strip on the bottom of the blank.
|
 |
It was difficult to imagine the shape that I wanted. I had no experience using a wooden low angle spokeshave...or any spokeshave for that matter...so I looked at a bunch of wooden spokeshave on the Internet and found some styles that I liked. I decided that I would not do anything exotic and I would more or less leave it large...I could always remove more wood later. I made some scale drawings. |
 |
Before working the wooden handles, I trimmed the front edge so that the wood and the brass plate were co-planar.
|
 |
Here is the sawn front edge. |
 |
I cut out my drawings and used them as templates to mark out the areas to remove from the top and front faces. |
 |
I then cut them on the bandsaw. Here is the sawn blank, ready for rounding and shaping. |
 |
I predominately used Auriou rasps to create surface shapes that felt good to me.
|
 |
Once it felt usable, I installed the blade to give it a try. I began without sharpening the blade... and with no real knowledge about fine tuning or adjusting the spokeshave... the first run was a little hit and miss but I ended up with a pretty decent shaving.
|
 |
The Hock blade came in great shape. The finishing touches were a polish on the back of the blade (4k and 8k stones), a small bevel using the Charlesworth Ruler Trick (CRT), and a micro bevel (12000 Naniwa Superstone) of a couple of degrees. Because of the width of the blade I had to work the stone on the bias. |
 |
I worked the wood some with sandpaper, small planes, and cards. Some of the machine marks were difficult to remove if they were near the brass plate. If I had it to do over, I would work the wood first, then add the plate and work the metal with files to make the edge co-planar. After smoothing out the wood, I put on a coat of finish oil. |
 |
For a temporary working finish I rubbed on a coat of Tru-Oil gun stock oil with a little 0000 steel wool work. |
 |
Top view. |
 |
Bottom view. |
 |
on order... |
|
