TESTED:Melbourne Tool Company spokeshaves
The MTC shave is 290mm long overall, cast body and cap and cork handle inserts.
Review and photos: Raf Nathan
Spokeshaves are a pleasurable tool to use giving you a hands on way to cut wood. I think they are one of the purest wood tools.
These shaves branded the Melbourne Tool Company are designed locally but made in China. They are beautifully made and the design is pleasing and functional. There are two versions; a flat bottom and curved, both 290mm long overall.
The body and cap are cast steel with brass thumbwheels for adjusters. There is a cork inlay on the handle for comfort although I wondered how the soft cork would wear over time.
Available as flat or round bottomed.
The blade shape and mechanism seem copied from Veritas as blades for each are a perfect interchange. There are two thumbwheels to advance or retract the blade that work well.
Ex-factory the tool is set up with a minimum amount of blade projection that was pretty good in use, however I couldn’t retract the blade for say, storage. The simple fix is to grind back the blade in length about 0.5–1mm, or just wait as the blade will become shorter as you sharpen of course. In practice, the projection made the shave ready to use.
The blade is a standard 50mm wide and a hefty 3.3mm thick and ground to a perfect 25°, but not honed so you will need to sharpen them first thing yourself.
Over the years I have found new blades need to be bedded in and the tip always honed hard or ground back to expose fresh metal. With machine grinding the tip can suffer from case-hardening and this needs to be removed.
The original Stanley design has an arguably better ergonomic grip than modern shaves.
These blades are M2 HSS known to be a tough steel that holds an edge very well. The harder steel does take longer to sharpen but should stand up to difficult or abrasive Aussie woods better than other blade types. You will spend more time at the wetstones sharpening them.
One thing that modern spokeshaves don’t have is comfort thumb pads incorporated into the design. In the photo, note my original Stanley shave with thumb pads placed for maximum comfort and force direction. The tool has been well set up and built, and worked well in my trial.
The tools exhibit quality materials and appear hand finished.
To compare other spokeshaves brands we can look at price, blade types and adjusters. The Lie-Nielsen with its bronze body and wood handles is a work of art. At $365 it the most expensive around and has an A2 blade.
The Veritas is a reasonable $278, has twin blade adjusters and their very good all-rounder PM-V11 blade. The MTC tool has twin blade adjusters and the M2 blade. At $135 it is a great buy given the build quality and good performance in use with the only down being the slightly harder M2 blade.
Available from Melbourne Tool Company https://melbournetool.com/