A traditional woodworking hand tool, also called a drawing knife or a draw shave, with a blade set between two handles and drawn or pulled toward the user to shave wood away in long strokes. Its blade is much longer along the cutting edge than it is deep, ground to a chisel bevel of around 25 degrees, and unlike a spokeshave it has no closed mouth over the blade, which makes it a coarser tool suited to rough shaping rather than fine finishing. Woodworkers use it to remove large slices of wood for flat, faceted surfaces, to strip bark from felled logs, to round a piece roughly before turning it on a lathe, and to shape items such as cricket bats. It is worked most safely and effectively with the operator seated at a shaving horse, a bench that grips the workpiece with a foot-operated clamp so both hands and the body's own weight can control the cut, pulling the blade at a slight upward diagonal rather than straight across.
Facts
Introduced When (Circa)Depicted in active use by the sixteenth century: an illustration in Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica shows a drawknife used together with a shaving horse, indicating the tool was already an established woodworking implement by that period. 1 OriginA drawknife has a blade with a handle at each end, longer along its cutting edge than it is deep from edge to back, sharpened to a chisel bevel of about 25 degrees. It is pulled, or drawn, toward the user, which gives the tool its name. 1 Introduced era (class) FAQs
Why is a drawknife used with a shaving horse?
A shaving horse grips the wood safely and lets the user add leg power to the pull.
A drawknife is pulled toward the user, so the work has to be held firmly while both hands pull. A shaving horse is a traditional bench the operator sits astride. It safely grips the working stock, and the operator can also use their legs for additional pulling power. That leaves both hands free to steer the blade through the cut.
Connections
Open Questions
Source Drawknife (Wikipedia)
Used In
Drawknife is used in Shaker Ladder-Back Chair Plan.
Drawknife is used in Windsor Chair Plan.
Drawknife is used in Woodworking.
In the Other Atlases
Era Of Origin
Also in History Atlas: the era this subject comes from.
Sources
1. Drawknife (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead paragraph, sentence 4
It is pulled or "drawn" (hence the name) toward the user.
De Re Metallica illustration caption
Use of a drawknife and shaving horse from De Re Metallica, a sixteenth-century work on mine technology
- Open Questions: When was the drawknife introduced as a tool?
View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
When was the drawknife introduced as a tool?
The standard reference consulted for this entity describes how the drawknife is constructed and used but names no date or era for when the tool was introduced.
What would resolve this A woodworking-tool history source naming when the drawknife was first documented, or its approximate century of origin.
History of technologyDrawknife (Wikipedia)
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