After the joinery is cut and maybe you dry fitted everything so you won’t have any surprises in the end, it’s time to start shaping the piece to its final form.

Shaping tools

The first tool I’ll reach will be either a spokeshave or a rasp depending how much wood I need to remove. I don’t like to use coarse rasps since they will often split the wood instead of cutting it so if I need to remove a significant amount of wood the spokeshave will be the tool of choice.

You have two choices when buying a spokeshave, either with a flat bottom or with a round one. The flat bottom model will allow you to shape straight and convex curves while the round bottom variant will come in handy for concave curves.

After the spokeshave its time to get the rasps and files out of your toolbox. In this category there are two tools I’m extremely fond of – my Auriou modeller’s rasp and my Grobet detail file. These two tools work so much better than any of my other rasps and files that I tend to do all the work with them.

The Auriou rasp is 8″ long and has a 14 grain cut which is very fine when you look at it but cuts incredibly fast without tearing all the wood fibers appart and leaving a rough surface, something that will probably happen if you use a coarse tool. The fact that the teeth on the Auriou are hand cut explains why it cuts so well and leave such a nice surface.

The Grobet detail file pictured above is often used by sculptors that work with wax and other soft materials but works very will with wood. It has coarse teeth on one end and finer teeth in the other which makes the tool a joy to use since you can go from coarse to fine in a fraction of a second by flipping the tool in your hand.

It’s also worth mentioning that both ends are tapered and one side is half round while the other is flat which allow you to work on multiple shapes with the same tool.

Taking good care of your rasps and files is important to ensure that they continue to cut well and the teeth don’t get clogged. For this I recomend a small brush with either nylon or natural bristels. Brass or steel brushes will do more arm than good to your tools and the teeth will dull faster.

Both tools and the small brush are available from Tools for Working Wood.

Next installment: Complementary tools

Everyone who’s been reading Chris’ blog for a while knows he’s a funny guy, but he’s also a talented and knowledgeable woodworker, and above all, a professional journalist. So I gave it a second though and realized I wanted to see what that joke of a tool was all about.

A quick Google search and there it was, right on the first page and being sold on Amazon, the Nicholson WoodChuck Chisel Rasp Set! And it looks freaking odd, like someone decided to play with the tool’s DNA and the result wasn’t quite what they expected.

A few questions cross my mind:

• How do you flatten the back of the chisel on your precious stones?
• How to you do a paring cut without denting the surface around?
• Do you hold the tip of the tool while using the rasp? Watch out, it’s the cutting edge!!

The more I think about it the more I want to go to my shop and take some paring shavings with my Japanese chisels and maybe smooth some curves with my Auriou rasp.

Handplanes

Choosing the first handplane may not be an easy task, there are many models to choose from and while each one has it’s funcion, some of them are quite versatile and can be used for various tasks.

When looking for handplanes, some advocate that old is better and that you should get a Stanley or other antique brand name from a local flea market. I don’t agree, specially if this is your first handplane.

A vintage tool will require some restoration and tuning before it will perform well enough to compete with the tools produced these days – significant tuning if you want it to perform as well as the top brand names like Veritas and Lie-Nielsen. This is not impossible, but you really need to know what you’re doing.

If you’ve never used a well tuned handplane before, how will you know how it is supposed to perform if you’re buying a second hand vintage tool? This is why I recomend that for your first handplane you should buy the best tool you can afford.

Quality handplanes sold these days can use some tuning and they’ll perform even better, but out of the box they can perform quite well. Sharpen and hone the iron and you’re good to go.

But which ones should I get?

I would say you’ll need three planes in your basic set: a low angle block plane, a low angle jack plane and a large shoulder plane.

Here are my reasons:

The low angle block plane, preferably with an adjustable mouth, can be used on end-grain and face grain, you can use it as a small smoother to handle difficult grain by changing the bevel angle on the blade and it’s a very handy plane when working with small pieces for small projects.

The low angle jack plane can be a really versatile tool. It can be used as a small jointer to flatten a small board and by closing the mouth and setting the blade for a fine shaving it can be used as a smoother. It won’t replace a full size jointer or a smaller smoothing plane, but as a first handplane it will be a tool that will accomplish many tasks.

The shoulder plane will be useful to adjust tenons, rabbets, and whenever you need the blade to extend all the way across the sole of the plane so you can reach a tight corner. This will be the third plane to get.

From here I would say you should get a dedicated smoother, a jointer plane and then you can dive into specialty planes like the router plane. Or you can start to make your won wooden planes.

Next installment: Shaping tools