Spokeshave Modification

I bought myself a couple of spokeshaves  from China for very little money. They're not very good quality, but they do work OK with a little bit of fettling. The irons take a decent edge, though how long that edge will last is anyone's guess.

The reason I bought them was because I wanted to see if I could reshape one successfully into a bellied spokeshave for cutting an inside radius, and if it's feasible (and workable) then I'll risk doing it on a better quality tool. The spokeshave on the right has had its leading edge filed down and rounded off for that purpose.

It does work somewhat, but it needs a bit more shaping I think. The front curve needs to be taken right up to the edge of the mouth, and the back edge should be curved away as well, as far as it can be without interfering with the blade adjustment screws. The much reduced sole area in contact with the wood makes the tool a bit more difficult to control, but that's only to be expected.

(Slight) Buyer's Regret: Dowel-forming Dies

4-die set. The plate has screw holes
in case you want to anchor it permanently,
but it isn't really necessary.

The die in use (cutaway)

I bought a set of Veritas metric dowel formers from Lee Valley (for more money than I really wanted to spend, but it's done now).
http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx…

They're good quality, but for the money I think you'd be better getting a manufacturing engineer to drill and heat-treat a ¼" plate with a range of hole sizes.

The separate dies are all very well, but if you're hammering dowels you get much cleaner results if you can take the dowel down in 1 or 0.5mm increments, and with this system you have to swap out the die each time. Also, there are only 12, 10, 8 and 6mm dies in the set, and a 2mm step is too much between each step really. You can hammer the dowels through OK, but it has a tendency to tear the dowel surface instead of shaving it, especially in an open-grained timber like oak.