Spokeshave

[Doomwolf]

Hi all. I picked up a Veritas flat-bottom spokeshave last week and Monday I had a chance to try it out on a chair made out of poplar. If I am getting tear-out on the poplar, is that because I am:

A) using a blade that is insufficiently sharpened? (it's a Veritas O1 blade and I gave it a hone on my Japanese waterstone,  and touched it up a couple of times over the hour and a half)

B ) going against the grain?

C) not using the correct technique*?

 

*on the curved surfaces, it seemed that the thing to do was to lift the front sole up so that the first contact the tool had with the wood was the blade

 

Any and all advice is appreciated. 

[Boatworks Today]

I'd suggest a few possible things to try.  First adjust the depth of cut to be shallower.  I'll usually lay the tool on a flat surface with a loose blade, push down on the blade while tightening the screws.  Spokeshaves can remove a lot of material quickly but it's all with very shallow cuts.  Second would be to change the direction that you're making the cut.  Often if I'm getting chatter in one direction, I'll get smooth cuts going the other.  Lastly holding the edge at a slight angle to the direction you're making the pulls can also help.

[TerryMcK]

You could also set the blade so it is at a slight angle across its width (not parallel to the throat opening). Simply move the tool laterally to the shallow end to take lighter cuts.

[cellardoor]

When I started using a spokeshave the cut depth was an easy fix, the grain direction seems more crucial than on other tools, and then really just the angle of attack. The flat bottom doesn't have much to reference off of and it's easy to rotate it just through the body mechanics of the stroke. After mangling a workpiece I just put a long board in my vise and started rounding it. By the time I'd nearly made a baseball bat I could reliably pull up a nice shaving and control the tool in order to round over a nice edge without tear-out. Skewing the iron a little is a great trick but I had better luck just getting the stroke mastered before I added the nuance of the skewed iron.