I recently acquired a new shaving tool made by Allan Williams. The idea was born out of constantly reaching for my travisher (made by Claire Minihan, a marvelous tool by the way) to remove a good bit of material when shaping spindles, crinoline rails, and the convex surfaces of seats. It works just fine for this, but there were many times where it became awkward to get the grip I needed to achieve a more controlled aggressive cut along a curved path.
Out of the box, Claire’s travisher could produce a thin shaving of about .005″[.13mm], or really hog out about a .02″[.5mm]+ thick shaving. The low angle cutting action of the blade was also a major reason I tried it in the first place.
I knew I was using an already specialty tool in a manner it’s ‘handle’ design didn’t easily allow for. At first it was just all part of the fun of making curved shapes and surfaces with hand tools, and exploring how diverse certain shave tools’ suitable applications might be. Eventually though, I began to wonder if it might be advantageous to have a tool with similar cutting action of my travisher, but with straight handles instead, and as well a flatter curved bottom.
A Strange Looking Travisher
I’d seen Allan’s travishers online and was always impressed by his tools, not to mention his chairs—he does excellent work all around! I contacted him to see if he’d be interested in a custom ‘travisher’, and I was glad to learn he was. At the time, I had so much going on with work and family life, I preferred to let someone that already knew what they were doing try it out. Much of the time my M.O. is to search the internet for info on how to make something, and do it myself. While it’s usually a blast, I often end up fabricating the one thing for two to five times the expense of paying an already skilled person to do it. Sometimes the fun outweighs the bad math, but not this time.
Once I sent Allan some photos of a mock up I’d shaped, he was even more stoked about the project. I made up a quick drawing with some dimensions for him to work from, and a little less than a month later my new roughing spokeshave came in the mail. Allan had set it up for a fine shave, as he wasn’t sure how aggressive a cut I was looking for, but he was super helpful instructing me how to adjust the cut by working the brass sole down some until I got the cut I wanted. Once the cut was producing the range I was looking for, the roughing shave was exactly what I had in mind. The flow feels much more natural and fluid in use than as before with the straighter handles and gentler curve bottom. Now I’m pretty stoked to explore with this one!
If you do order one of these beautiful tools from Allan, and you know you’ll want a heavy shaving, just ask him to set it up for an aggressive cut on softwoods. If you’d like to make one yourself, I’m providing the PDF of the drawings I sent Allan. There was some interest on his Instagram page about the ‘plans’, though they’re really basic and more like a helpful diagram. They were never meant to be comprehensive drawings, which is the main reason I’m offering them for free.
Download The Drawings
While there are a few sections at full scale, most of the drawings are at half scale. They’re plotted on 8.5″ x 11″ (Letter) size paper. However, you can make them full scale by taking them to a print shop and ask them to plot them at 200% on 18″ x 24″ (ARCH C) sheets. You could also print them on 11″ x 17″ (Tabloid) paper at 200%, though you’ll have to play with the layout and end up with more than 2 sheets. Have fun.
