Spokeshave Project – Irish Stick
Bow making was canceled this long weekend but I wanted to get some practice in with my spokeshave and draw knife. I decided that I wanted some "wasters" for practicing with people after I take the Irish stick workshop in June so I thought it would be a perfect weekend project. (Yes, I should be working on some whips and I will get to them later on tonight after cleanup.) I went to Home Depot and picked up a 6' 1x3 of maple. I know maple isn't ideal material for a fighting stick but I wanted something cheap and easily available that I could practice my spokeshaving on. I drew the outlines for two sticks and rough cut them with a jigsaw then spent the last couple hours working on one of them, getting to know how my tools work for shaping and smoothing. I'm pretty sure that the spokeshave is my new favorite tool. And the upshot of hand tools is that they don't make a ton of noise so I won't disturb anyone if I work late at night.
Anyhow, pictured is the end result, with one coat of tung oil on it. Pretty sure the stick will break very quickly if used with even a little bit of aggression, however. It's not bad for a first effort but it is very clearly a waster. 