Sharpening Spokeshave Blades

[Benchwayze]

I wonder how many different ways we have between us, of sharpening these blades?

I sandwich the blade between an old plane iron and chip-breaker.
Works fine, you don't have to make it, and it and if it's a worn-out iron then it can be kept just for this job. You can even put the set up in a honing-guide if you use one.

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

I use the Veritas small blade holder - bought it when I bought a Veritas low-angle spokeshave, which has a particularly small blade.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The thin Stanley-type I freehand sideways on waterstones or diamond paste.

The thick HNT Gordon blades can be run forwards/backwards as well as sideways.

Grip the blade firmly between your thumb and top two fingers, then run the lower two fingers against the side of the waterstone as a fence.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Benchwayze]

Nice idea Derek. But I think my guitar playing would suffer if I abused my fingers that way. It might wear away the callouses on my fingertips and I would have to start guitar all over again!

I prefer to hold the blade as I said, and it's like honing a plane iron.
To each our own of course.

John

 

[Alf]

I use the Veritas small blade holder - bought it <snip>

Big spender - I made mine :roll:

Most of the time it's the Mk1 "freaky hand" (TM) for me, although the otherwise very useless Stanley honing guide copes with incredible short blades like that very well. Mind you, am I alone in thinking any metal spokeshave iron is a walk in the park compared to the ever-challenging wooden spokeshave blades? Those tangs are a real argument against having wider bench stones :lol:

Cheers, Alf

 

[Joel Moskowitz]

for wooden spokeshave with tangs, if your stone is wider than the blade just use the stone on it's side.

 

[Alf]

Joel, works great up until you try it with a diamond stone...

Cheers, Alf

 

[pam niedermayer]

Alf, very narrow diamond "stones" abound, cheap, too.

Pam

 

[Joel Moskowitz]

Joel, works great up until you try it with a diamond stone...

Cheers, Alf

Why would you ever need to?
it's so much faster (and historically accurate) to hollow grind and go from there to stones.

 

[Alf]

Sigh. I was only mentioning that tanged blades are a bit trickier and that the edge of the stone isn't always the solution, s'all. I'm not saying they're impossible and I'm not saying there aren't ways round the extra difficulty (up to and including throwing further money at the problem) - just that IMO short flat irons are way down the scale of difficult blades, s'all. :roll:

Cheers, Alf