Thank you Scottg, the Spoke Shave works great!!! Finally finished the sanding & it feels good in the hand...
attached some photos...
Aloha Jerry
Hey it looks great Jerry! Cuts nice too?? :)
For those of you that don't know its a nice story.
Jerry originally found a single Proto gear puller jaw in a pile of loot. He was showing the loot and I wasn't sure but it looked an awful lot like a Proto jaw. So I wrote and asked and of course it was. He had no real use for it.
He asked what I'd trade for it.
So I asked what kind of work he was doing and wanted to do, looking for a proper trade. It turned out he was wanting a spokeshave. Maybe they are harder to find in Hawaii? But anyway he didn't have one. So I suggested an old blade (and make your own body) would be a fitting trade for a single puller jaw and he thought it was fine.
Time passed as the post office had trouble finding Hawaii on the map...... heehehehe
I had the blade sharpened up and ready to go, when here come's Jerry's jaw......
Uh oh,
there was more in the padded envelope!
2 pieces of some super hard wood (he told me the name, but I forgot already, heh) and a slab of the most quilted, spalted koa you ever saw!! Both are just screaming to become Perfect Handle or other tool slips.
Well, now the swap had swing way wide of center, and I had a fine opportunity to even it up!
I found a piece of osage orange I'd been saving for a shave body.
If you don't live in the midwest, osage is the wood that they say..........
"if you use it for a fencepost the hole will wear out before the post does"
Indians used it for bows, and I bet they were majorly powerful bows!
Well, I fitted the blade until it cut well, and roughed out the body to my favorite pattern. Spokeshave blades are pretty easy fit to a block of wood, and get them to work.
But from there though, the shape and subtle curves are not as easy as you'd think. Not if you want it "fair" as they used to say. I've seen a lot of clunky spokeshaves in my life. Lots of original antiques are pretty clunky. I made a number of them until I started getting it down at all.
So, I shaped it and sent it off for Jerry to finish up.
I can easily see Jerry has done a nice job on smoothing up and finishing,
and the contours are still there.
Good one Jerry! She looks mighty fair to me!
yours Scott
Osage Orange tree is the "horse apple" tree. Also aka Bodark tree.
Correct name is Bois de Arce.
Texas has a lot of them. I have one here on my place, male, that is estimated at 200 years old.
There is a male and a female tree specie.
The male tree has fluffy seeds that the wind blows around, and these seeds will find the female tree and pretty soon, large sticky "green apples' are on the female tree.
Nothing seems to eat them, maybe horses, but the white sticky fluid comes out of them.
These fruits are 4 to 5 inches in diameter.
The indians made bows out of them
The farmers and settlers made fence posts and foundation supports for their houses.
Famous for not rotting when buried in the ground.
During the winter, all leaves are shed, leaving a stark ghostly specimen, that lure photographers to take photos.
Great job on the drawknife by both parties. Thanks for showing. RnB
Chuck; Believe this or not, when I was going to Vincennes University, late 60's, I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle who lived about 300 yard from the Wabash River on the South edge of Vincennes. I borrowed my Uncle's shotgun one afternoon and went down the river bank looking for squirrels. It wasn't long before I saw a limb shaking so I eased up and saw the fox squirrel cutting on a hedgeapple (Bois de Arch fruit). I quickly downed him and to make a long story shorter, we could not even eat the gravy made from him, bitter as quinine. But at least on fox squirrel has been known to eat hedgeapples. RnB
Mr. Bent, Squirrells are funny creatures. and as far as taste you are right about what they eat effects the meat. I have shot them in the fall and the meat was delicious same tree in the spring and even the dogs would not eat them. You could smell them when you skinned them. Must be the stuff in their larder. OR MABE PROTECTION BECAUSE THEY ARE OK AFTER THE LEAVES COME OUT bob w.