Shaving Horse

Shaving Horse at the Old Sturbridge Village Museum

Fall is officially here (hooray!) and I will start to think about indoor projects. One of the projects I hope to get get done this fall is to build a shaving horse.

A shaving horse is use to hold a piece of wood in place so that you can use draw knives and spoke shaves to work the wood. I always found them to be interesting. Seems like I have accumulated a number of shaving horse pictures when I go to museums. Here is a picture I took this past summer of a shaving horse at Sturbridge Village.

There are a lot of plans available. Many of the shaving horses I have seen are different. Some are very primitive, while others are quite finished. I'll probably keep on the lookout for old draw knives and spoke shaves.

I also want to build a spring-pole lathe. Such a lathe uses foot power to spin the stock. If you are a fan of the Woodwright's Shop, you will see Roy Underhill build all sorts of things using simple / primitive tools like a spring-pole lathe. I wish our local PBS had this show on, but you can see it on the internet. I guess I'll also need to look for old chisels and gouges for the lathe. . .