Thread: Rejuvenating an old cobbler's heel shave

I have about 4 of them. All different numbers for carving chair seats. Different numbers mean different curves.

Originally Posted by Pagie

I have about 4 of them. All different numbers for carving chair seats. Different numbers mean different curves.

Is there any trick to setting the mouth or is it just insufficient work on my blade preventing me from taking a nice thin curly shaving?

They need to be sharp. You can look through the blade opening to cut near a line or edge.

I put the shave to work on another lid. It is better than nothing at all. The handles definitely get in the way when working towards the outside of the hollow. It felt a bit better going diagonally cross grain, a bit like working with a scrub plane, but still hard on the fingers trying to keep it tilted just right to take a cutting.



I'm working on a piece of meranti, it has reversing grain across the plank and I'm finding it shaves nicely one side but tears out easily along the grain on the other side.

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This is the wrong tool for what you are doing. Tearout is best seen when making chair seats. This occurs when working with- or against the grain. It is better to work across the grain. Scrapers will finish surfaces.

Your heel shave is intended for this work (and not hollowing) ...




In your case, I would be using a large Round plane (as it has a mouth to control tearout), especially one with a high cutting angle (use a back bevel), followed with a scraper.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I have cut the handles off my healshaves. And screw the cut

I agree with Derek, you are asking too much of a pretty crude tool if you expect to control tear-out. Something with a tighter mouth and a higher-angle blade like a 'round' would manage a lot better. They are not brilliant at dealing with opposing grain either, but would do a lot better than the heel shaves, I reckon..

As you say, anything that removes the waste reasonably quickly with some degree of control is a help, and you should be able to fix the torn side with some coarse paper wrapped around a block with a matching curve.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Pagie

I have cut the handles off my heelshaves. And screw the cut

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Hi All. I know that I am a little late to this thread, but I have been trying to process one issue through my (somewhat slow) brain. I have a small number of "travishers" among the tools that I have accumulated in bulk deals over the years. I have not gone looking for them - they just seem to have found me. But the one shown in the following pictures confuses me a lot. It is stamped "Erskine" and does not appear to have had much use (the cutter seems virtually full width)

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Sure, I can accept that these might have some function in leatherworking, and could also be used to shape the seats of Windsor-type chairs. But if you look at the third picture, you will see the D(arrow)D stamp, signifying that this was previously used/owned by the Department of Defence. This is the third "travisher" that I have seen with the DoD stamp. What the heck would the Department of Defence have used a tool like this for? I can't see them making their own chairs, or even their own boot lasts. So is there some OTHER use for these tools, that is not immediately apparent? Any suggestions?

Hi Bruce,

I wonder if it could have been used in Coopering? Alternately if it was specifically Army issue and not more generally Government issue I suspect there were a lot of cobblers in the old days fixing army boots.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by oldBruce

... This is the third "travisher" that I have seen with the DoD stamp. What the heck would the Department of Defence have used a tool like this for? I can't see them making their own chairs, or even their own boot lasts. ...

The army had a mountain (literally) of boots that required repair on all campaigns. The boot makers were not that far from the sharp end. They were called boot makers but were actually repairers.

The curved spokeshave was used to rive the new soles and, after tacking to the welt, were also used to trim the edges of the sole.

I have never heard them refered to as "travishers", only as spokeshaves, and think they would be a little delicate for hacking into a molded chair seat.

Thanks for the suggestions, gents. The number of these I have seen (with DoD stamps) recently - WITHOUT looking for them - leads me to believe that there must have been a reasonable number of these out there, and I still have some difficulty accepting that repairing boots in the field was a business that would have required the number of tools that seem to be out there, but it is certainly the best explanation I have heard to date.

I suppose an augmenting theory might be that Defence just ordered a truckload of these in order to be prepared for every contingency, and issued them to every general artificer so that they could repair boots if they had to. That might explain why the DoD ones are quite lightweight (to keep the weight down in a deployment tool kit), and the ones I have seen to date seem to have had minimal use. (Reminds me of a pallet of 15 or so unused blacksmith's anvils - all stamped DoD - that I saw in No 2 RAAF Stores Depot Detachment Dubbo in the early 90s: something to have 'just in case'. Even though I doubt there had been any blacksmiths in the Air Force for at least 40 years!)

And Graeme - I use the term travisher with the quotation marks to denote how they often seem to be described by a surprising proportion of sellers (and some owners). I entirely agree that these are not robust enough to do much of a job on scooping chair seats - particularly the relatively lightweight Erskine I am puzzling over at the moment.

Originally Posted by oldBruce

... and I still have some difficulty accepting that repairing boots in the field was a business that would have required the number of tools that seem to be out there ...

But not just "in the field". There were boot makers on every base and depot and on many Navy ships, plus the military always carries contingency stocks.

It's been a while since soldiers were expected to go into combat barefoot; and they probably beat the daylights out of their boots. I can imagine the need for a cobbler.