10 Comments

Thanks Peter. My back dislikes being hunched over the bench these days, and this gets the work up higher, among other things. I can see this being useful for cabriole legs, too.

Expand full comment
author

I was using the dogs more yesterday and am starting to get the hang of them. I think they'll become very useful in several situations.

Expand full comment

I'm really enjoying your Substack, Peter. Your work is just stunning. Today, I'm trying to figure out how I can fix these German dogs somehow onto a sash cramp placed in a face vice, since I don't have a tail vice. I was trying this out this morning, ineptly, when a magpie strutted up to the workshop door and cackled at me.

Expand full comment
author

We don't have magpies here, so I'm especially taken with them when I see them elsewhere. So much personality.

Expand full comment

Really like that!!! Such an easy but intelligent tool. Thank you Sir!

Expand full comment

An older gent might not want to sit on the hard shaving horse seat too long, but you have the advantage of using your back muscles. Also, you can quickly flip the stick around to achieve uniform size along its length. in the dogs set-up, you are standing, so you use more leg power, but you seem to be clubbing one end by not switching it in the dogs end-for-end. Personally, I always thought a padded leather bib on your chest might be a good idea.

Expand full comment
author

Trent - I've used them a bit more and they're starting to make more & more sense. It's been mostly planing, I'll try more drawknifing later - I bet it will go fine. The wooden bib shows up in the 18th c French stuff particularly - with the other end of the stick pressed against a block, etc.

Expand full comment

Well, those bibs are for boring, no? Not a pad to protect your chest from a drawknife?

Expand full comment

I've seen those bibs used for both tasks: boring, and as "the second stop for a stick being shaved by a drawknife (or, more often that not, a push-knife), the other stop being a block on a low bench"

(see minutes 12:30 to 16:30 of the video on this post of Peter's other blog, for example:

https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/tag/masashi-kutsuwa/

The guy uses 2 different bibs in this case, but you can see the stuff)

Expand full comment