Spokeshave ?

[Mad Max]

I think I want a spokeshave for tillering Osage with a arch belly like the back.
I don't want some cheep crap.
Any suggestions?
Should I use one or stick with a scraper?
Not as young as I use to be

[Badger]

Spoke shave is a good tool but possibly a little bit aggressive for the fine tillering. One thing good about the spoke shave is that it requires very little physical effort. It will work fine for the finish tillering as long as you keep the setting for very light cuts.

[Woody roberts]

Mine is a $9.00 from Amazon. It had to be sharpened of course but I didn’t consider that an issue. It works great but I would be hesitant to use it for final tillering.

[Hawkdancer]

Carefully! Like a mini drawknife, only more delicate, I think!  Make sure it is honed and sharp, then be more careful!  The real old timer type could make a glass like surface with one on a wheel spoke, hence the name.  I ain't that good !
Hawkdancer

[Dances with squirrels]

Every osage bow I've made has had a radiused belly and rounded sides. The faceted tillering and shaping method Torges described is a good way to get to a radiused belly, and when it comes time to round things over the rest of the way, there's not much left to remove and a scraper or Bowyer's Edge does it very quickly. Have you tried the Bowyer's Edge? It can be a good compromise between a spokeshave and scraper. Takes off nice, gauged, thin, long ribbons of wood.

I like the looks of the Boggs spokeshaves on Lie Nielsen site, but they're out of stock. Maybe they're discontinued, not sure.

Maybe check out Veritas spokeshaves at Lee Valley.

[Eric Krewson]

I never liked a spoke shave for bow work and I have several configurations, a bowyers edge (if you can get sharpened properly ) works well.

I do my final tillering with a cheap orbital sander with 180 grit paper on it. This works two ways for me; one, I go slow and two it takes out all the washboard off the belly of the bow from earlier scraping, even up to the top of the fades.

[Nasr]

I use a spoke shave and a farrier rasp till I get to floor tiller. Once I start using tree I use a scraper and rasp. I would use a spoke shave tillering  on the tree but have ruined too many bows doing that. I do use it to narrow my tips at the end as well.

[dylanholderman]

I wouldn’t recommend the cheapo one from amazon, I got and saved pretty much just the blade.
The main problem is that the mouth is to wide and can cause bad tear out.
If I did it again I would spend a couple more bucks and buy either a vintage one or a decent brand like kunz or one of the “good” Stanley clones.

[RyanY]

I have one I got from Harbor Freight years ago. It’s horrible to fiddle with but definitely useable and I have gotten very fine shavings from it. I still use it very often and it’s one of my favorite tools for bow making. One day I’ll get a nicer one and wonder why I didn’t sooner. A spokeshave can absolutely be used for final tillering if tuned for very fine shavings. I always recommend it as it’s less commonly used compared to a rasp/draw knife/cabinet scraper.

[monoloco]

I'll admit to being a noob boyer, but I've been working wood with mostly handtools since mid 70's.  So I'll add this:

A low angle cutting tool (plane, spokeshave, drawknife used in conventional fashion) works great as long as very carefully adjusted and very sharp.  Even then, when encountering knots or fiddleback, crotch, etc. where grain is opposite cutting direction, they will often tear out the wood or hang-up.  Again, if VERY sharp and well tuned (it's not just blade depth but also throat adjustment/size, chip breaker, etc.), it'll work, but it's very easy to take a big chunk out.

A scraping tool is actually much like a miniature plane (at least a rolled edge scraper is) and they can be incredibly effective in removing long shavings from the gnarliest of woods.  If they do 'dig' it's usually pretty minor and no real tear-out occurs.  My almost 40yr old Sandvik scraper is still my go-to tool for fine wood removal.  In instrument making I learned NEVER to use sandpaper, and all finishing was done with that scraper.

Relatively new to me, is using a drawknife by dragging back of blade as a scraper.  In past I would never have 'abused' a cutting edge that way, but I'm currently finding it as the best option for tillering my first (Osage) bow :-))  That said, I'm finding that I always finish up with cabinet scraper.

The one downside of scrapers (excepting those held in plane-like handle) is that you can get waviness.  Pretty much with all cutting tools, I learned to push the edge through the material at an angle (even planes).  So there is some slicing action, and if there are ripples, I just change angle to span the ripples (rotate in opposite direction).

Anyway... just my humble attempt at contributing

[Mad Max]

I guess I will stick with the scraper

[monoloco]

I just walked in from shop where I am working on my first bow in Osage :-)) and one last thought occurred to me:  One of the things I love about a scraper is that you can slightly bend the blade to make it either convex or concave, depending on how you hold it and whether you pull or push.  I found myself pushing with my thumbs to hit little proud humps and then pulling it with a shallow concave edge, to give the back of bow a gentle curve.

Not sure ANY of that is good bowyering, but can't think of another tool that does it as well!

I also found myself contemplating my drawknife, bought at a farm sale decades ago.  There is a definite curved indent midspan even tho it's started life as a straight-edged tool.  Looks like it was used hard, and used on spokes, or other 'sticks' of some sort.  I wish tools could talk...

[Pat B]

I never liked using a spoke shave except when I worked with yew and ERC. Granted I never really learned to adjust it properly. Like monoloco, I get a lot of the semi-course and fine work with a scraper. Actually when I started using a scraper more my bows got better. I guess it slowed me down enough so I don't outrun myself.

[DC]

I can only get a spoke shave to work on perfect wood and I don't get a lot of perfect wood.

[Jim Davis]

I agree with everything monoloco said. I finish with a scraper made from a section cut from a handsaw plate. I have two--one straight on one edge with teeth on the opposite end for fast wood removal and another scraper with a slightly concave edge.

Only place my vintage spokeshave gets used is for rounding edges. But, I only make pyramid designs.