Shave Horse

Lee Stoffer saddles up and rides his newest project, a shave horse.

Man using wooden shaving horse tool outdoors.

My first proper green woodwork project was making a shave horse on a course run by Mike Abbott many years ago. A shave horse is basically a sit on vice that enables a workpiece, traditionally chair parts, to be held securely using pressure supplied by your legs, while being worked with a drawknife, which requires the use of both hands. This particular incarnation was pioneered by the extremely talented American bowl carver, David Fisher, designed around his requirement to grip various sizes of bowl to work on them with a drawknife. My design is heavily based on David’s portable version of his bowl horse with a couple of minor modifications.

In future I hope to expand on this with some modular add-ons for more specific work-holding tasks. The main difference with this design, over more conventional shave horse designs, is the ability to clamp the work end-to-end giving full access to the entire length of the timber being shaped. The accuracy and tolerances required here are more easily achieved with seasoned wood so I used oak and ash that I harvested and chainsaw milled a few years ago. 

Tool and equipment

  • Circular saw
  • Power plane
  • Thicknesser
  • Drill press
  • Power drill/screwdriver
  • Lathe and turning tools
  • Jigsaw
  • Bandsaw
  • Jack plane
  • Block plane
  • Travisher
  • Hand saws
  • Lamps
  • Level
  • Digital protractor
  • Mallet and chisels

Wood

  • Oak (Quercus robur)
  • Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)
  • Pine (Pinus sylvestris)
Diagram of wooden horse structure side view.
Sawn wooden planks with a hand saw nearby.
1. First I prepared the boards for the main body of the horse. The seat board was roughly shaped, retaining the offcuts for the rear legs before planning to the required thickness
Man woodworking in garden with hand plane
2. I cut a board in half at a 75° angle to create a pair of boards for the pivot bed. After correcting some warp and wind with a power plane I ran them through the thicknesser then clamped together and cleaned up as a pair with a hand plane
Drilling hole in wooden plank with drill press.
3. While the boards were still clamped, I drilled a series of 19mm diameter holes for the pivot pin with 55mm between centres
Woodworking tools and partially carved wooden pieces.
4. Then it was time to blend the bed section into the seat with some nice curves. I drew them freehand, used a jigsaw to remove the first side, and flipped the waste over to mark the second set of curves for symmetry
Circular saw on wooden planks for cutting.
5. I ripped down between the bed rails, made the release cut with a jigsaw and cleaned up the inside cut surface with a block plane on the skew
Person carving wood in a workshop
6. A drawknife was used to chamfer the top edge of the board, then I cleaned up the outside of the bed rails with a jack plane
Sawing wood with a hand saw in workshop.
7. Next I made the front leg, cutting a tenon 40mm wide to fit in between the bed rails in the seat board. The tenon was left long to be trimmed flush after assembly
Workbench with woodworking tools and wooden plank
8. The front leg was clamped in place with the rear of the seat board propped so it sat level. Material was then prepared over length for a pair of rear legs
Wooden workbench with square and clamps
9. The rear legs have a splay and rake angle of 15°. To create the rake angle I clamped the legs together and trimmed one end at 75° before offering them up to mark out the joints
Woodworking with hand saw and chisel
10. Each leg has a half lap joint with a tricky compound angle, but it looks good and adds stability
Close-up of hand carving wood with chisel.
11. The legs were offered up to mark out the rebate in the seat board to receive the half lap on the legs. I made stop cuts and knocked out the majority of the waste before paring to the correct angle for the splay and test fitted the legs securing them with a screw into the seat board
Person using cordless drill on wooden furniture.
12. I ripped the offcut from the front leg material in half to make a cross brace to fit between the legs. The brace was secured with two screws through each leg and a couple more through the seat board countersunk by at least 10mm to allow for hollowing later. Excess leg length was then trimmed flush
Wooden piece with a power router on table.
13. The upright static clamping head was cut from ash to fit the slot in the bed with a 50mm post to drop down through the seat board and protrude by 10mm. The curve cuts were softened with a round over bit and the upright fixed in place with a screw through the underside of the seat board
Workbench with clamps in a woodworking shop.
14. Clamping the bed side boards in place flush with the front leg, I used a couple of holdfasts to keep the pivot holes aligned. The seat board was fixed to the front leg with a screw from each side
Man using drill on wooden beam in workshop.
15. Accessing the bottom of the bed rails I added screw fixings every 100mm up into the side boards with a pair of coach bolts at either end of the bed to fix through the side boards, front leg and the ash upright
Wooden chair arm on deck floor.
16. I then cut another brace to fit between the rear leg cross brace and the protruding tenon of the ash upright. Screw fixings were made into the cross brace and the upright before securing through the seat board from above, in deeply countersunk holes
Person woodworking with hand tools on wooden chair
17. I turned a dowel to the diameter of the countersink and plugged all the holes in the seat and trimmed the dowel flush. I used a travisher to slightly hollow and sculpt the seat to improve comfort
Drill bit creating hole in marked wooden plank.
18. Time for some moving parts! The swing arm was cut from ash planed to fit in the slot of the bed. Pivot holes were drilled at 19mm and 15mm holes at either end to receive locating pegs. I cut a tenon on the top of the swing arm to allow for various clamping heads to be fitted securely fastened with a peg through the 15mm hole
Wooden spindle being crafted on a lathe machine.
19. I used the waste from cutting the thinner end of the swing arm to turn a pivot pin. I burnt in some detail and planed flats onto the handle, then turned a couple of tapered pegs that bite half way through the 15mm top and bottom holes in the swing arm
Wooden sash clamp for furniture assembly
20. The clamping head was shaped to suit the work I wanted to hold and recessed to fit over the top of the shoulders on the swing arm tenon. I used some scrap pine and made my head reversible with a peg to locate in tang holes on tool handles with a general purpose concave surface on the opposite end
Wooden holdfast in workshop setting
21. I clad the clamping surfaces with leather for added grip, rubber could be used as an alternative fixed with contact adhesive
Wooden base with shavings on workshop floor.
22. Now all I needed was a tread plate. This was thinner rough sawn material. I used 28mm thick oak cut to shape then marked out the two mortises, which allows the tread plate to fix to the swing arm in different positions to increase adjustment potential
Craftsman carving wood with chisel and mallet
23. The mortices were cleaned up to achieve a slightly ‘baggy’ fit on the swing arm. This allows the tread plate be slid up or down the shaft so it can be adjusted to comfortable height and distance dependant on which pivot holes are used. Friction holds it in a working position and the retaining peg prevents it sliding off the shaft during adjustment
Woodworker carving wood with drawknife in workshop.
24. A quick test shaping a tool handle. A firm grip was achieved with very little effort while sitting in a comfortable working position, then a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil really bring out the beauty in the grain
Man using a shaving horse for woodworking outside.
25. At maximum capacity 650mm long billets can be held, I based this on how far I could comfortably reach the full length of the workpiece. There will be more customisation later!

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Reviving Old Clamps

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