Making a Shave Horse
Making a Shave Horse
Instructor - Craig Stevens
The Shave Horse class will be scheduled again in 2025
The shave horse or shaving horse is a traditional workbench that is particularly suited to green woodworking and shaping woodworking parts. It’s designed primarily for drawknife and spokeshave work and is ideal for creating round parts like chair legs, rungs, and spindles as well as spoon and utensil carving, walking sticks, paddles, and many other projects.
Essentially a foot-activated clamping bench, pressure on a workpiece is applied by pushing the treadle’s foot bar. The workpiece is easily repositioned again and again by simply releasing pressure with your foot. It’s a very efficient and intuitive method of holding and releasing a chair spindle, for example, that needs to be repositioned often so that all surfaces can be worked. The shave horse is ideal for projects like our upcoming Appalachian Post & Rung Chair workshop.
Students make their own shave horse in this 2-day workshop and have an opportunity to practice using a drawknife and spokeshaves.
The design of our shave horse seen in the photos comes from personal experience and various historical and contemporary examples. The design will change slightly from the photos of the shop’s prototype. For example, now that the prototype has been in use for a while, the overall length could be a little shorter, making it easier to use in a small space and to store.
Green woodworking is a form of craft that uses unseasoned (green) wood. Unseasoned describes wood that has been recently felled and still has a high moisture content. This greenwood is generally much easier to shape and work with hand tools than seasoned or dried wood. Several hardwood species of green wood and slightly drier air-dried wood also steam bend very well, allowing for making a wide range of projects.
PFW is looking forward to offering more green woodworking classes in upcoming seasons and a shave horse is one of the important tools for many types of green woodworking. Part of our motivation for creating a series of classes centered around the shave horse and green woodworking is that few tools and little space are required to enjoy woodworking and making things with your hands. Many types of woodworking need machines, dust collection, and a lot of space. This isn’t always practical for many people. Green woodworking can be completely unplugged, quiet, and very satisfying and can take place outdoors on a porch, balcony, backyard, garage, or tucked away in the corner of a woodshop.
Participants of all skill levels are welcome. Instruction will be given on the various uses of a shave horse such as shaping traditional chair parts, spoon carving, etc.
Here is a link to a short video showing the shave horse in use. The link leaves our site and goes to YouTube (the dates seen in the video are from our 2023 class).