Comment

Comment by mlwebb on December 17, 2010 at 10:45am

Rick,

The main trick with a drawknife is that it should be very sharp, and that you work with the grain, like a plane. After that, they are surprisingly easy to use, and offer more control than one would think. Making these oars more than doubled my drawknife experience, there is no reason to fear using one for the first time (practice on a scrap first). The amount of wood removed in one pass depends on ones courage - the risk being that it will split off more than you want if you are too aggressive.

For making oars, after  tapering the square shaft with planes (parallel with the blade), sawing the tapers perpendicular to the blade, I marked the 8 sided lines with a quick homemade spar gage, Then used the drawknife to cut off the 4 "corners" to make the shaft 8 sided, then took the 8 corners off to make it 16 sided. From there I cut a belt sander belt, and used it like an old time shoe shiner's rag to round the shafts. My first passes with a drawknife I was taking maybe an 1/8 inch thick splinter off the corner, working down to a less than a 32nd before switching to the block plane. You do have to keep a careful eye on grain direction, and switch the direction you are working when you encounter a contrary patch.

Always store your drawknife wrapped in a piece of leather, to avoid knicks in the blade (and fingers!).

I plan on being at the Wooden Boat Festival :)

Michael

Comment by Rick Newman on December 17, 2010 at 5:54am

Micheal, how much wood must a drawknife operator experience before he obtains the obviously fine control you have achieved?  The wood looks to be carefully chosen to, fine and straight grained .  My father was a carpenter and had many nice tools.  However he died in 1959 and apparently my mother needed the money and sold or gave away most of them.  I do however remember that he had a drawknife and I always wanted to learn to use it.

At what degree or amount of wood removal do you choose to use a drawknife rather than a plane to do the job.  The wood being removed is obviously much thicker than what is commonly removed with a plane.  I couldn't see the wood being removed with the block plane but I would assume that it is almost possible to see through the finer shavings.

 

Once again I have to say that you do fine work!  I would really like to visit with you at the next Wooden Boat Festival.

 

Rick Newman