Shaving horses

[SeanHellman]

Great stuff Mikkel, it is good to see that people are making their tools from cleft and hewn wood rather than buying ready sawn timber. I get much more satisfaction when hewing my own planks etc and making something straight from the tree as it was cut down.

[Mikkel Frederiksen]

Gavin requested some more pictures of my shaving horse.
Here they are...

First of all I should also tell you that I "upgraded" the horse the other day. I trimmet the head and added a notch in the "table" (or whatever its called).









I saw this method of putting legs on a bench in a crafts-book from 1875, that I bought from an antique-store. In the book they used a "dovetail" joint, but i made a simple version, hoping that it won't fall apart...

[jrccaim]

Sean Helleman said:

Great stuff Mikkel, it is good to see that people are making their tools from cleft and hewn wood rather than buying ready sawn timber. I get much more satisfaction when hewing my own planks etc and making something straight from the tree as it was cut down.

I couldn't agree more -- but some people simply don't have access to logs on the hoof, without a great deal of trouble and travel. My shaving horse is crude, but it was hacked out of a birch log by wedges & sweat; I'm actually proud of it. But the urban, or suburban, bodger probably has no choice but to use milled lumber. Never mind, keep those shaving horses coming. Inspiration in every post!

And MIkkel, beautiful horse. Bravo!

[quickthorn]

Here's mine, that's all but finished. It's ash..I just need to replace that lath, seen held with the red strop, with a proper board, which will be held with a wooden peg that will go through holes in the board and horse. After testing, I cut a notch in the head, which holds handle-type work a lot better.

[SeanHellman]

Great horse quickthorn, it is nice to see people use wood straight from the tree, careful you don`t sit on that banana.

[davestovell]

I think this horse has some interesting features like the wedge and foot extension.

http://www.westoverwoodlands.co.uk/Who/andwhere.htm

(Sorry I couldn't cut and paste an image)

[Robin Fawcett]

Mike Abbott's shave horse made from easily obtainable materials...

[Ian S]

Aargh!

Yet another good idea for me to borrow/pinch and tweak the design of!

I was wondering about making a small-ish shave horse specifically for bowl hewing (so a horizontal, front and aft clamp, rather than the classic top and bottom clamp of a 'normal shavehorse). I might need to visit the local timber merchant...

Cheers

[RichardLaw]

Aargh!

I might need to visit the local timber merchant...

Cheers

Skip man, local skip - leave the timber merchant alone!

[davestovell]

RE:

Aargh!

I was wondering about making a small-ish shave horse specifically for bowl hewing (so a horizontal, front and aft clamp, rather than the classic top and bottom clamp of a 'normal shavehorse).

Cheers

I dont know if this fits the bill , and it may have been mentioned before but is this any good for your needs?

http://www.countryworkshops.org/newsletter9/

[Ian S]

Hi everyone

Skip man, local skip - leave the timber merchant alone!

I wish!! Edinburgh doesn't seem to do skips, especially in the town centre, where I stay. As an aside, it's the height of the famous (or infamous) Edinburgh festivals at the moment, and the town is thronging with tourists....

I dont know if this fits the bill , and it may have been mentioned before but is this any good for your needs?

http://www.countryworkshops.org/newsletter9/

(Quiet whimpering sounds from central Edinburgh) - wow, even more good ideas. I'm going to have to dig out a notepad and start making some sketches....

Thanks all!

[jrccaim]

Ian S said:

I wish!! Edinburgh doesn't seem to do skips, especially in the town centre, where I stay. As an aside, it's the height of the famous (or infamous) Edinburgh festivals at the moment, and the town is thronging with tourists....

I sympathize with you. When I lived in Juneau, although I was surrounded by trees, it was illegal/immoral/fattening to cut a single one. Any kind of milled lumber was atrociously expensive, and imported from Washington or Oregon(!!!) to boot. What is one to do? Here are some suggestions based on experience.

(1) Cargo pallets are your friends. You can find them, usually free, at docks or ports; at large-scale merchants, especially the DIY store people, food stores, and anything else that takes wholesale deliveries. I have found mahogany boards that way.

(2) If you have a car, buy a rack for it. Then drive to the nearby beaches. They need not be the Riviera or the Lido. The grubbier the better. You would be amazed at what the tide brings in. I found a 8x10" 10' long on the beach. It was very grungy, but it cleaned up beautifully. It is now part of my workbench.

(3) Suburban construction sites are the mother lode of lumber. Again, you need a car and a rack, or a pickup truck, but you can find all manner of things free of charge. I assume Edinburgh has suburbs; hard to escape them these days.

(4) Again in suburbs, trees occasionally fall. If you know how to use a chain saw, and can transport the results, an ad somewhere to the effect "I'll clear your fallen trees for free" may yield a lot of good wood. Some Nazi communities require certifications, licenses, and other obstructions to enterprise; if Edibra' is one of those, you are out of luck. But it might pay to make friends with a tree surgeon. If you haul off the Surgeon's wood, you are saving him (or her) time and money.

(5) Get a cheap small plane at a boot sale. Round off the edges on a grinder; sharpen it. You've got a scrub plane. Carry it with you at all times. If in doubt of the quality of a piece of scrap, plane it a bit and see what is beneath the grunge. That ugly board may be mahogany.

(6) Learn to make scarf (or scarph) joints. You can often piece together a suitable piece from two or more smaller ones. In Nelson's time, most warship keels were scarfed; the long pieces just didn't exist any more. If the wood is too thin, then you can try laminating by gluing boards together. This requires big clamps. If you work with wood, buy every cheap clamp you can find. Laminates are often stronger than solid wood.

(7) Once you have a source of pallets, you need some tools to take them apart. I regard a Japanese nail puller as indispensable. NOT any old nail puller. The Japanese ones are hardened and will pull nails even when the heads snap off. The other things you need are a really big claw hammer and a really long pry bar.

Above all, keep your eyes open. It is truly amazing what lies about, and we don't notice it. As George Dyson says in his wonderful book Baidarka, "never buy anything you can make, and never make anything you can find."

[Ian S]

Hi jrccaim

Many good ideas in your post....regrettably I can't drive, so that puts a touch of a damper on things, but I'll see what I can do with your suggestions.

Cheers

[RichardLaw]

regrettably I can't drive

How about a trailer for your bike?

[Ian S]

How about a trailer for your bike?

Hmm, might just be an idea there!

Cannondale Bugger, anyone (Cannondale did indeed call their child-hauling bike trailer that - wonder why it didn't sell too well in the UK?).