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The Lee Valley
Veritas Low Angle Spokeshave
by ALF
December 19, 2004
There were ten in the bed and the little one said
“How come you’re only reviewing this shave now when you’ve had it for over
2 years? Oh, and roll over.”
Yes, the first shall be last and all that jazz. After some strenuous use of this
tool over the last few days I figured I was freshly au
fait enough with it to add a review to the cannon. This shave is very
like the woodies of old, primarily because of the low angle blade of course; but
also has more than a hint of a Stanley “Razor Edge” and a modicum of
similarity to the Rapier. The body is black, powder-coated aluminium, with a
movable aluminium toe and brass nuts and screws for the adjustments. The A2
steel blade is 1/8” thick and 2” wide (that’s 50mm, metric fiends). It
came wrapped in a copy of its instructions in a sturdy plain white box.
I rather like the appearance of this shave, I must admit. The shape is, of
course, pretty traditional which may account for it. All in all it looks pretty
classy. The fit and finish is excellent, as we’ve come to expect; after two
years of use the main evidence of the passage of time, apart from the sawdust,
are a couple of scratches on the toe piece.
Adjusting this shave is quite an interesting experience at first. Rather than
have an iron with twin posts like a wooden shave, the sides of the iron have a
bevel which is captured by the heads of the two bolts, tightened with knurled
brass locking knobs. Probably best to refer to the instructions
to see what I mean… 
Moving the iron backwards and forwards opens and closes the mouth opening, while
the “back” of the blade also provides the sole of the tool, with cutting
depth set by the height of the toe piece.
The latter has two possible positions. One way up it creates quite a reasonable
sole in front of the edge for convex and flat work; flip it 180° and the toe
becomes vestigial for use on concave work. Because of the length of the iron
front to back the concave curve it can follow isn’t particularly “quick”
though.
The iron comes with a 20° main bevel and 25° micro bevel. As far as I can
recall the blade was pretty flat, and the edge doesn’t take long to hone. The
only real drawback here is holding the iron at all. It’s small and the sides
are sharp. The instructions include plans for a simple holder, despite Veritas
also making a small blade holder, which is excellent and well worth making (or
buy the commercial variety).
Fitting the blade is a case of slipping it in, bevel up, under the bolt heads
which, in conjunction with the angled sides of the iron, act like a sliding
dovetail. Tightening the nuts is best done a little bit on each side at a time
to get an even grip. Setting the depth of cut using the toe piece requires a
screwdriver, and it can be finicky until you get the knack. My screw heads are
slightly messed up, simply from the number of times I found myself fiddling to
get the setting right before I was familiar with the tool. Too deep a cut and
the iron tends to get pushed back, and even out of the grip of the bolts
altogether as there‘s no mechanical stop to prevent it. Too shallow and you
could be there all day on some jobs.
Ergonomically I find this spokeshave pretty comfortable to hold both pushing and
pulling. Not much else to say really. 
Oh, I like using it one handed, a bit like a very odd block plane, just to
chamfer end grain edges; it’s light enough to do that with no problem at all.
Almost like using a knife really.
This shave is the one I reach for first every time, and 80% of the time I
don’t need any other. It excels at end grain, as you’d expect with the low
angle, and only in the worst cases does it rip up long grain rather than shave
it. My one grumble is its inability to really waste away wood at speed, because
of the iron slipping backwards if you take too big a bite. Its performance
overall is so good that I’m willing to overlook that little shortcoming
though. On the whole I think any moderately keen spokeshave user will want one
of these in their arsenal. Up until the recent rash of new bevel down shaves on
the market I’d have said this was the only modern shave to bother with, and
even now I think it’d still be my first choice if I was buying again.
Low angle Spokeshave £38.78
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