A shaving horse (shave horse, or shaving bench [1] ) is a combination of vice and workbench, used for green woodworking. Typical usage of the shaving horse is to create a round profile along a square piece, such as for a chair leg or to prepare a workpiece for the pole lathe. They are used in crafts such as coopering and bowyery.
The shavehorse is commonly used in the preparation of stock prior to turning in a lathe, to roughly form cylindrical billets, the intermediate dressing phase between a crudely dressed raw split log and the final lathe work.
As the name "horse" suggests, the worker sits astride the shaving horse. The clamp is operated by the operator pressing their feet onto a treadle bar below. A foot-actuated clamp holds the work piece securely against pulling forces, especially as when shaped with a drawknife or spokeshave. [2] [3] [4]
The shavehorse provides a rapid and sturdy clamp, which allows the operator to use their legs and upper body weight as additional "power" for work. It is considered by some[ by whom? ] to result in less fatigue than generated by constantly standing.
Shaving green wood with the drawknife or spokeshave along the grain is far quicker and easier work than turning across it. Skilled operators can produce very fine results with a drawknife and shavehorse, requiring minimal lathe finishing.
Straddling a shave horse while carelessly using any dangerous power tool, such as a circular saw, may result in the operator suffering serious bodily injury.
The typical clamp is a vertical bar or bars, hinged on a pivot attached to or passing through the bench/seat top. The top of this bar is enlarged into the "horse-", "dog-", or "dumb" head, the part that holds the wood. Some clamps are worked via string or rope, rather than mechanical leverage.
For extra precision and better clamping force, the clamp pivot point may be raised above the bench level on a sub-bench, giving more leverage. These so-called "Black Forest" or German and Swiss shave horses (as pictured) give a longer lever-ratio, creating greater mechanical advantage and thus greater force to trap the wood very securely.
Shave-horses are commonly workshop-made by their user and entirely wooden, though modern screws, washers, metal sleeves and threaded bolts with locking nuts are a very welcome and practical innovation, allowing re-tightening or capability to be knocked-down as necessary.
For the itinerant bodgers, simplicity and lightness of their tools was important, thus the bodgers often created their shave horses from logs found in their woodland plot.
Mike Dunbar, the "Dean of Windsor Chair Makers", [5] has posted a blog decrying the use of the shave horse for actual production work: "I do not use a shave horse. When asked why, I answer, 'Why would I impose a pay cut on myself?' That is in effect the result of using this tool. It is so limiting that it slows down the chairmaker and costs him income. I prefer a vise. Using a vise I am standing, not sitting, and I am far more productive and efficient. I work far faster, using less energy." [6]
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making, wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
A lathe is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about that axis.
A workbench is a sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewellers benches to the huge benches used by staircase makers. Almost all workbenches are rectangular in shape, often using the surface, corners and edges as flat/square and dimension standards. Design is as varied as the type of work for which the benches are used but most share these attributes:
A spokeshave is a hand tool used to shape and smooth woods in woodworking jobs such as making cart wheel spokes, chair legs, paddles, bows, and arrows. The tool consists of a blade fixed into the body of the tool, which has a handle for each hand. Historically, a spokeshave was made with a wooden body and metal cutting blade. With industrialization metal bodies displaced wood in mass-produced tools. Being a small tool, spokeshaves are not suited to working large surfaces.
Woodturning is the craft of using a wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation. Like the potter's wheel, the wood lathe is a mechanism that can generate a variety of forms. The operator is known as a turner, and the skills needed to use the tools were traditionally known as turnery. In pre-industrial England, these skills were sufficiently difficult to be known as 'the mysteries of the turners guild. The skills to use the tools by hand, without a fixed point of contact with the wood, distinguish woodturning and the wood lathe from the machinist's lathe, or metal-working lathe.
A drawknife is a traditional woodworking hand tool used to shape wood by removing shavings. It consists of a blade with a handle at each end. The blade is much longer than it is deep. It is pulled or "drawn" toward the user.
A pole lathe, also known as a springpole lathe, is a wood-turning lathe that uses the elasticity within a long pole as a return spring for a treadle. Pressing the treadle pulls on a cord that is usually wrapped around the piece of wood or billet being turned. The other end of the cord reaches up to the end of a long springy pole. As the action is reciprocating, the work rotates in one direction and then back the other way. Cutting is only carried out on the down stroke of the treadle, the spring of the pole only being sufficient to return the treadle to the raised position ready for the next down stroke. Bungee cords are sometimes used as a modern replacement for springpoles. A bungee cord can function within a smaller space but the pole lathe still rotates in two directions and cutting is only possible on the downstroke.
A bench dog is a removable clamp used on a woodworking workbench to hold an item fast while being worked. It is characteristically used in concert with an adjustable dog on a bench vise, allowing an item compressed between the two to be held fast on each end, and if offset in both directions.
A vise or vice is a mechanical apparatus used to secure an object to allow work to be performed on it. Vises have two parallel jaws, one fixed and the other movable, threaded in and out by a screw and lever.
A lathe center, often shortened to center, is a tool that has been ground to a point to accurately position a workpiece on an axis. They usually have an included angle of 60°, but in heavy machining situations an angle of 75° is used.
A bench hook is a workbench appliance used in woodworking to hold a workpiece in place while crosscutting with a hand saw. A bench hook is a simple method used to improve accuracy and safety.
The Woodwright's Shop is an American traditional woodworking show hosted by master carpenter Roy Underhill and airing on television network PBS. It is one of the longest running how-to shows on PBS, with thirty-five 13-episode seasons produced. Since its debut in 1979, the show has aired over 400 episodes. The first two seasons were broadcast only on public TV in North Carolina; the season numbering was restarted when the show went national in 1981. It is filmed at the UNC-TV studios in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
A holdfast or hold fast is a form of temporary clamp used to hold a workpiece firmly to the top or side of a wooden workbench or the top of an anvil.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
In engineering, a dog is a tool or part of a tool, such as a pawl, that prevents or imparts movement through physical engagement. It may hold another object in place by blocking it, clamping it, or otherwise obstructing its movement. Or it may couple various parts together so that they move in unison – the primary example of this being a flexible drive to mate two shafts in order to transmit torque. Some devices use dog clutches to lock together two spinning components. In a manual transmission, the dog clutches, or "dogs" lock the selected gear to the shaft it rotates on. Unless the dog is engaged, the gear will simply freewheel on the shaft.
Bodging is a traditional woodturning craft, using green (unseasoned) wood to make chair legs and other cylindrical parts of chairs. The work was done close to where a tree was felled. The itinerant craftsman who made the chair legs was known as a bodger or chair-bodger.
A workbench is a specialized table used by woodworkers. Features include a flat, solid work surface and one or more means of holding the material being worked on.
A surform tool features perforated sheet metal and resembles a food grater. A surform tool consists of a steel strip with holes punched out and the rim of each hole sharpened to form a cutting edge. The strip is mounted in a carriage or handle. Surform tools were called "cheese graters" decades before they entered the market as kitchen utensils used to grate cheese. Surform planes have been described as a cross between a rasp and a plane.
Jennie Alexander was an American woodworker considered a pioneer in the woodworking world, "Instrumental in designing the now iconic two-slat post-and-rung shaving chair,". She also coined the term "greenwoodworking" as a single word in her book, Make a Chair from a Tree: An Introduction to Working Green Wood.
A woodworking vise is a type of vise adapted to the various needs of woodworkers and woodworking. Several types have evolved to meet differing primary functions, falling under the general categories of front and end vises, reflecting their positions on a workbench.
