Drawknives & Spokeshaves

Some woodworking tools thrive with straight, flat surfaces (think hand planes) while others are meant to cut loose a bit. Drawknives and spokeshaves fall squarely in the second camp. As a result, these tools can be a joy to use and open up a new dimension to your projects. Their freeform nature can sometimes create an intimidation factor for new users. I also believe that spokeshaves and drawknives can be unfairly thought of as simply crude or rustic tools meant for “country-style” projects. Instead, my goal here is to introduce these two tools and show how you can use them in a variety of ways from coarse to refined.

DRAWKNIVES

While drawknives and spokeshaves are like cousins, it pays to look at them one at a time. Let’s start with the drawknife.