Tuning a draw knife to problematical osage

[Eric Krewson]

OK, I am a razor sharp drawknife guy, sharp has never failed me until today. I was working some slightly green osage billets down to one grain today. They were the really bad roller coaster type, wood hard as a rock just like I like it with plenty of snake thrown in as well. My sharp drawknife would catch a peak and splinter off the wood no matter how hard I tried to carefully slice it off, same on the few level spots. I used my old faithful huge debarking drawknife and a thinner Greenlee, both very sharp with the same results.  Next I grabbed my thinner blade Pine Knot drawknife and dulled it back to the level I once used before I learned how to work wonders with my sharp drawknife.

The wood was so hard and the early wood so thin that the dull drawknife couldn't make much progress.

I thought " I need to tune this drawknife for this particular wood" and sharpened the edge a couple of stokes with my diamond hone. The new edge was slightly better but still not what I needed. Sharpen a few strokes and test, sharpen a few strokes and test, about the 4th sharpening session BINGO, just exactly the edge this wood needed to behave. Chasing a grain on the rest of the billet was a piece of cake.

This tip may be common knowledge but this is the first time I tried it. I have worked down at least 300 osage staves so far so I am not exactly a beginner.

[wapiti1997]

Nice tip!  I have found that sometimes problem stave areas can be worked by working from the other direction. 

Thanks for sharing!

[soy]

Learn somthing new every day  gonna give that a whirl....thanks 

[Eric Krewson]

This stave was an equal opportunity splinterer, direction didn't make any difference.

As for my slightly sharpened drawknife, it ended up about half way between very dull and razor sharp.

[Drewster]

Eric, was it the sharpness of the edge or the angle of the bevel that worked?

[bradsmith2010]

slightly green can be problematic ,,glad you got it worked out

[E. Jensen]

Do you use your knife with the bevel up or down?

[JW_Halverson]

Draw knives are made to be run bevel up OR bevel down.  It all depends on how the handles are set.  If the grips are parallel with the flat of the blade, it is a bevel up knive.  If the handles are slightly bent below the plane of the blade, then it is a bevel down knife. 

I got one of each, never understand why I choose each one, but my hands seem to know which one to reach for once I am into the wood.

I find if I have trouble with the drawknife pulling splinters off the growthring below, let it set a few more days to dry a bit more. Or maybe it just allows me to get my head in the right space.  But I learned that works much better than forcing the issue. 

Glad you got this one licked, Eric. 

[Eric Krewson]

I am a 100% bevel down guy. I sharpened the cutting edge using the bevel as a sharpening guide.

[Pat B]

I have better control with bevel down.

[gianluca100]

I like to use it bevel up, but most important is the angle. I use quite a steep angle on a rather thick blade and give it a convex form. In this way the knive works more like a plane and does not cut too much into the wood. Of course the sharper the better 

BR,
gianni

[Pappy]

I use bevel up and like Eric usually very sharp.
   Pappy

[SLIMBOB]

Bevel up, razor sharp, but then I spin it around for shaving work as it reduces the chattering for me.

[Eric Krewson]

One thing this thread shows is we all have a slightly different way we use our tools, bevel up or down, sharp or dull, straight of curved, it doesn't matter. The type of drawknife we learned to use first sticks with us forever.

I can't help thinking of the phrase " Dance with the one who brung ya" because the first drawknife I bought many years ago is still my go-to tool when I wade into a pile of osage. 

[DC]

Now that you have that knife tuned up it will be interesting to see how it compares with a sharp knife on other pieces of osage.