Woodworking Benchtop Shave Horse - How to Build a Shavehorse for Hand Tools

A traditional shave horse requires a lot of space in a workshop, but this benchtop version is designed to provide the function of a shave horse but it stores away very easily when not in use. Watch Scott in his workshop show you how to build a benchtop shave horse.

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A shave horse is an important tool when using spokeshaves and drawknives for shaping furniture parts or wooden objects such as canoe paddles. A workbench vice can't provide the functionality of a shave horse because it requires using your hands to clamp and unclamp the work. A shave horse allows you to hold your tool in one hand, the workpiece in the other. The easy clamping and unclamping of the workpiece is accomplished with the foot treadle, while the hands are occupied with the tool and the workpiece.

Resources:
- Video - Spokeshave Holder in Hand Tool Cabinet Organizer - https://youtu.be/zjwv_NBTaR8
- Video - Spindle Repair on a Chair Back - https://youtu.be/FkIR6pcoeGE
- Fixing Furniture YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/fixingfurniture

A shave horse is a common tool for chairmaking. Typically, thin parts, such as the spindles on the back of a Windsor chair, are split out of wood to ensure the gain in the part is straight. Then a drawknife is used to rough out the part and get it into an octagon shape. The part is then worked down to the rough profile of the desired part with the drawknife. As you can imagine, there's a lot of clamping and unclamping required, which is why the shave horse was invented. Once the part is roughed out, it is then refined with spoke shaves. In a separate video, Scott shows how to reproduce spindles to repair a broken Windsor chair back - see https://youtu.be/FkIR6pcoeGE

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See the tools we use in our workshop and the tools we recommend: https://www.amazon.com/shop/homeimprovementwoodworking
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