Bodger Tools

 Here's my travel shave horse.  I take it with me to many demonstrations and shows because of its light weight and compact size when taken apart.  I also like it to demonstrate with because it's quite rustic, period and location appropriate and shows what a typical shave horse might have looked like for a Bodger working out in the woods of the Ozarks Mountains.

 All in a small package. It's the 1700-1800 version of the small shop combination machine!  I call it my Mini-Bodger Machine.  It's like a Mini Lathe ... or Mini Bowlathe!  The seat is sculpted from a half-log section of a soft-ish wood called Catalpa and has a large hole up front where the different "machines" slip into when using them.  I built this one due to a show I was doing and I knew I would only have just a couple of square feet to put my demonstration tools into.  This worked pretty well and was a big hit at the show!  You can see in the picture here that I have the Shave Horse in working position with the Shave Mule attachment sitting on the seat and the Mini Bow Lathe propped up next to the seat.

When you don't have much room to work ... this thing does the job.

 Also known as riving steels or long splitters in some places.  The top picture shows 3 different froes; all of them a bit larger than the relatively common shingle froe (which I forgot to include in the picture).  The top and bottom froes are new ones simply made from 1/2" thick x 2" wide common steel.  The handle hole is just wrapped around.  Although it's common to then weld that wrap to the main part of the froe, these aren't made that way.  The steel is plenty big and strong to withstand any force on the handle.  The middle (leftmost) froe is an older one with a forged handle hole (heated, holed and swedged out to size).  The main difference between these two types of froes, for some, is the fact that the handle is either in-line with the froe blade (the older forged one) or offset to one side (the newer bent ones).  Frankly, I've not noticed much of a difference and can easily work with either one.

The top froe has it's handle driven from the top into the hole while the other two have the handles slid up from the bottom (the more traditional approach).  Again, either way is fine with me but sometimes the driven-from-above type can come loose and pull off.  One more thing to notice in that top picture, the bottom two froes' handles are quite a bit smaller than the top one.  Really, that's all that's needed for a handle.  While the froe is, certainly, used  to pry apart pieces of wood, it shouldn't be necessary to really crank on it with a lot of force.

The middle picture shows a cross section of one of the new froes.  From that you can get some idea of the "wedge nature" of this traditional tool.  It is NOT a cutting tool.  It IS a wedge.  The "edge" is only sharp enough to penetrate into the wood slightly in order to start the wedging process.  After that, the edge does nothing.

The bottom picture shows the old froe and how it is really bent and beat-up.  Interestingly, it works just fine.

 Bent Adze.  Bowl Adze.   This is a specialized type of adze tool.  Being an adze, it's also a very old type of tool.  You can see here that it's being used to rough-out a bowl shape.  It's very much a carving tool and mainly used for roughing rather than fine, detailed work in wood.  The blade is attached to a limb-trunk section of wood (walnut in this case) that is shaped to the right angle for what I use this tool for.  The crotch section of wood makes for a very strong angle and is why it's often used for this tool.

I like to use this tool for bowls, larger spoons and also to saddle some chair seats.  It's actually quite amazing how quickly this thing works.

In the bottom picture, you can see the hand placement.  That's actually not the common position that I use.  Normally, I'll grip it much further up right at the crook ("V") of the tool.

 I call this a "hook scorp" because I don't know what else to call it.  I guess it's as good a name as any to describe this tool.  I used this tool much as I do the Scorp / Inshave (below) but this one can be used one-handed and in much tighter spaces.

 Your basic chair makers scorp.  Also called an Inshave.  This one does have a bit thinner steel than many others out there and you do risk a bit of chatter on the wood at times.  This tool acts like a smoother.  It's not really made for roughing out (although for quick, easy jobs I'll use it for that purpose) but it's also not a fine finishing tool (see Travisher below), either.

 I love these things!   It is designed to hold cabinet scrapers for you while you work the wood.  You can see in the top picture just how much of a bend you can put into the scraper.   This tool is fantastic because your hands don't cramp up; your fingers (thumbs!) don't feel like they've been in a vise all day; and your flesh doesn't burn from the heat build-up of using scrapers for long periods at a time.

Such a simple tool that makes using the scraper so much more enjoyable.

Also known as a Bodgers Brake, Cleaving Post or Splitting Stand.  This is a triangular design but there are a few others in use around the world.  Soon, I'll post a few pictures of the other one I regularly use, a single post design.

This piece of equipment, as you can see from the pictures is used to aid in the splitting (riving) of long pieces of wood.  for short pieces, just simply setting a billet of wood on a log or low bench works just fine.  But, for longer pieces,  where you can't easily reach the top of the to-be-riven piece of wood with the froe, a riving brake really works very well.  For my work, I use this brake mostly for chair back legs, long axe handles, rake handles and splitting out small planks and boards the traditional way.

The idea here is to start the froe into the end of the piece you're working on while the piece of wood is just leaning against one of the boards of the brake.  Just enough so that it sticks and stays there.  Then you affix the other end of the piece of wood underneath the far back horizontal piece at a comfortable height for you to work.  People are of different heights so that's why that back horizontal brace is angled.  Also, because longer pieces are more comfortably worked with the far end lower and shorter pieces easier when the far end is a little bit higher.  So, depending on what I'm working on, I just position it along that brace as needed.

You'll see in the pictures that that back horizontal brace is either on the left or right side.  That's just personal preference and I wanted to show that you could do with either way.  All that that back brace is doing is keeping the workpiece from tipping up when you're pushing, pulling and "wedging" the froe through the wood.

The last two pictures show my froe club that I keep at the riving brake.  It's formed such that it hangs easily from the braces of the brake and doesn't fall to the ground all of the time.

If you're needing to split / riv longer pieces of wood regularly, a brake like this one (or other design) is really critical for the craftsman.

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