START YOUR PROJECT

A photo of shaved bark that was shaved using a draw knife

A Short Guide to Draw Knives

Ramelson is committed to providing you with the finest wood crafting tools online. Our products are professional-grade, USA-made, and perfect for woodworkers of any skill level. In order for you to do the best job, you need the best tools available, and Ramelson aims to be your go-to resource for woodworking tools and beyond. To learn more about our products, contact us today.

Ramelson offers an extensive variety of woodworking tools for sale, and our goal is to be able to provide you with everything you may need to complete your latest project. One of the more unique tools we offer are draw knives. While physically demanding in their usage, draw knives are one of the most useful and efficient woodworking tools. In this blog post, we’ll take a brief overview of the tool, give you a few tips on how to care for them, and talk about their usage. Read on to learn more!

What Are Draw Knives

A draw knife is a traditional hand tool meant for woodworking. It is able to shape wood by shaving it, and the user pulls or draws the curved blade towards them, hence its name. With most blades, the user often pushes the tool away from themselves, whereas with draw knives, you perform the opposite motion to shape your material.

Draw Knife Maintenance

Like any tool, draw knives require a certain amount of maintenance in order to ensure that they can continue to provide you with optimum results. While it depends on how much you use your draw knife, making sure that the blade is sharp as well as oiling its handle are key to maintaining its top performance. The blades should be sharp enough to shave but not splinter the wood. If you use your draw knife often, you’ll find that you’ll have to sharpen it more often than not, but doing so will help you to be able to get the most out of it.

Sharpening your draw knife is a relatively easy thing to do, but as is the case with sharpening any tool, you need to make sure that you’re being careful to ensure that you avoid any accidental injuries. You can use both machines and hand tools to sharpen a draw knife, but hand tools tend to be a bit better in that machines can possibly run the risk of rendering your tool useless.

The best course of action is to get your draw knife to your desired sharpness level and do your best to maintain it between uses. This will make it easier on you while ensuring that your tool stays sharp and continues to perform at its best for you.

Draw Knife Uses

There are a wide variety of things one can do with a draw knife. Draw knives are perfect for essentially any project that would require wood to be shaped via shaving. Smaller draw knives of 8-10” are commonly used for building furniture, while larger draw knives can be used for specific tasks like de-barking a tree. Whether you’re building the handle for an axe, creating rustic-looking fence posts or building a larger piece of furniture, draw knives are an extremely versatile tool that can help you with all of these projects and more.

Buy Draw Knives Online

We hope we’ve been able to give you a better understanding of draw knives and their uses. If you’re looking for a draw knife of your own, at Ramelson, we have a wide variety of woodworking woodturning tools for beginners and professionals alike, from draw knives to woodworking knives to plane blades and more. High-quality and ready to use, our woodworking tools will make a fine addition to your woodshop. Shop our selection of woodworking tools today!