Chair Devil

identity

• name: Chair Devil (preferred term). Related / overlapping terms: "gunstock scraper" and "ram's horn scraper" — Schwarz writes "Chair devils (also called gunstock scrapers)" [CD2], but Popular Woodworking's example under those names is a flat-bottomed, two-handled cabinet-scraper form [CD3]. These names cover a broader housed-scraper family; check the actual sole and target geometry rather than treating the name as an exact alias. Web searches for "chair devil" collide with the unrelated "Devil's Chair" legend.
• family / category: Scraping — a housed scraper with a sole. Peter Galbert: "really just a housed scraper that functions much like a spokeshave" [CD1]; he mentions both flat- and curved-soled chair devils [CD1]. The current Veritas chair devil uses a concave, diameter-specific sole for round stock [CD5][CD9].
• edge: varies by variant. Veritas supplies a curved 45° edge and instructs the user to hone the bevel to a fine wire edge and lap the face [CD9]. Some shop-made chair devils use card-scraper stock and a burnished hook [CD13][CD2].
• one-line: A small two-handled housed scraper, pushed or pulled along already-near-size round chair parts to final-shape and smooth them after drawknife and spokeshave work — useful where the spokeshave tears.

✦ how NOT to use it

• not-for: see the conditional list in matching.
• dangerous: The former "honestly and fully empty" framing is withdrawn. Veritas's instruction sheet cautions that the blade is sharp and careless handling can cause serious injury [CD9]. The housed edge is less exposed during an ordinary pass than a bare scraper, but the removable blade is sharp.
  • Handling the loose blade carelessly. Removing, installing, projecting, honing and lapping a small curved blade all put fingers close to its edge. Handle, install, hone and lap it by its safe areas, and follow the manufacturer's warning [CD9]. Confidence: HIGH.
  • Hands in the projected edge's path. Keep hands and body out of the cutting path, especially when pulling toward the body; control the tool with both handles [CD9]. Confidence: HIGH.
  • Unsecured work. Secure the work (shaving horse, vise or holding jig) before cutting [CD13]. Confidence: HIGH.
  • Careless clamping. Loosen and tighten both thumbscrews deliberately when adjusting projection. Confidence: HIGH.
  • Heavy first passes. Make light test passes and adjust [CD9]. Confidence: HIGH.
  • Eye protection, gloves or other controls are not claimed here beyond these, since no authoritative source for this tool's sharpening method was checked for them.
• damaging:
  • A dull or poorly maintained edge degrades the cut (card-scraper family, reasoned cross-reference) [CD-cross].
  • Working against the grain can still tear; the sole prevents rippling on soft earlywood [CD2] but does not make grain direction irrelevant [CD9].
  • Corrosion from finger oils; wax the sole and wipe the tool [CD9].
• beginner-trap:
  • Pushing or pulling without determining grain direction first — bidirectional handles are a control, not a substitute for reading grain [CD9].
  • Expecting it to fix shape problems — it refines a near-final surface; check diameter, taper and straightness separately.
  • Choosing a size far from the part's diameter — the manufacturer's sizes are intended for named diameter classes [CD5]; exact mismatch effects are not claimed here.
  • Skipping edge maintenance [CD-cross].
  • Assuming the tool guarantees results — Glenn's experience [CD4].
• lineage-misuse:
  • Confusing it with the Traviscraper or Spokescraper [SP8].
  • Treating a flat "gunstock" or "ram's horn" scraper as a round-stock chair devil, or the reverse — check the sole [CD3].
  • Treating a bare card scraper as equivalent on round stock — Schwarz ties rippling to the missing sole [CD2].
  • Applying one edge preparation to every chair devil — Veritas's honed 45° bevel vs. a shop-made burnished hook [CD9][CD13].

correct use

• Good at: final-shaping and smoothing already-near-size round parts — spindles, rungs, legs, posts, and (per the manufacturer) canoe-paddle shafts — reducing local high spots and spokeshave marks [CD5][CD9]. A sharp chair devil can be useful on compression-side, reversing or otherwise difficult grain where a spokeshave tears [CD1][CD2].
• Grain direction: inspect the result and change between push and pull to continue working with the grain; the handles allow the change, but the user still determines the direction [CD9].
• Setting: for the Veritas tool, begin around 1/64" below the sole, test, and adjust as required; take light cuts [CD9].
• Check dimensions separately: diameter, taper, straightness and overall roundness are separate outcomes; check them with gauges or the project's layout method.
• Sharpening (Veritas blade): regrind only when honing cannot restore the edge, on a drum matched to the radius; hone with a slip or 600-grit on a dowel to a wire edge, then lap the face on a 1000-grit stone [CD9]. Handle the blade by its safe areas throughout. Wax the sole against rust [CD9]. Shop-made hook-edged blades follow card-scraper practice [CD13][CD15].
• Dissent: Bob Glenn built one from a scraper blade and "didn't like it... A draw knife, spoke shave and scraper work for me" [CD4].

✦ matching — for the app's read

• does: final-shapes and smooths already-near-size round parts, reducing local high spots and spokeshave marks; can help on difficult grain where a spokeshave tears [CD1][CD2][CD5][CD9].
• suits: Windsor and post-and-rung chair spindles, rungs, legs and posts; canoe-paddle shafts (manufacturer-named) [CD5]; paint stripping on spindles (Paul Sellers) [CD14].
• kit-fit:
  • pairs with: Drawknife and Spokeshave; the Veritas Scraper Shave for non-round parts [CD7]; diameter gauges or calipers.
  • substitutes for: a curved card scraper held by hand on round stock [CD13][CD15].
  • cannot replace: layout, diameter gauges, taper references, a lathe, rough-shaping tools, or the Scraper Shave on non-round surfaces.
• not-for (conditional):
  • IF significant material must come off, THEN use the drawknife or spokeshave first.
  • IF the surface is flat or a seat hollow, THEN use the Scraper Shave or a Travisher/Inshave [CD7].
  • IF the target diameter falls outside the tool's rated class, THEN choose a matching size or a shop-made profile.
  • IF the part is a fine show-wood spindle, THEN note the reported disagreement: some makers reportedly avoid scraping spindles [CD20], while Galbert, Schwarz and Sellers use chair devils on them [CD1][CD2][CD14].
• access: mechanically simple, but the blade is sharp (see dangerous), grain reading is still required, and edge maintenance is a learned skill. Glenn's experience shows good results are not guaranteed [CD4].
• revival: Galbert [CD1]; Sellers teaches making one [CD14][CD15]; a shop-made record from 2005 to 2025 [CD1][CD2][CD13][CD16][CD17]. Two teaching chairmakers, Elia Bizzarri and Jeff Lefkowitz, list a card scraper and omit the chair devil [CD21][CD22] — an open split.

anatomy

From Veritas's Care & Use sheet (2018, three-size edition) [CD9], cross-checked with the Lee Valley listing [CD5]:

• body / toe — machined steel body with a solid brass toe.
• blade (Veritas) — high-carbon steel, 0.040" thick, Rc48–52, with a 45° blade bevel ground to the curved profile. Veritas instructs honing the bevel until a fine wire edge develops, then lapping the face to the same finish; it does not instruct turning a hook with a burnisher [CD9].
• blade (some shop-made forms) — card-scraper stock with a burnished hook [CD13][CD15].
• retention — two brass thumbscrews clamp the blade between body and toe. For the Veritas tool, begin with the edge around 1/64" below the sole, test the cutting action, and adjust as required [CD9]. Loosen and tighten both clamps deliberately.
• handles — hardwood, shaped for pushing and pulling so the user can change direction to keep working with the grain [CD5][CD9].
• sole — the Veritas sole is concave, sized to a named diameter class [CD5]. Shop-made soles may be flat, straight, tapered or curved [CD1][CD15].
• angles, labelled by feature: 45° blade bevel on the Veritas blade [CD9]; approximately 75° body/working presentation in one shop-made design (Farmer), achieved by planing the sole after assembly [CD13]. These are different features, not competing measurements.
• companion — the Veritas Scraper Shave, same construction family, for non-round parts; its 45° edge is described as "readily burnished to create a long-lasting hook" [CD7].

variations (living)

Veritas (Lee Valley) — snapshot at the entry's check, 2026-07-26 (prices and availability volatile) [CD5][CD6][CD8]:

Replacement blades are sold. Made in Canada. The 2018 Care & Use sheet and Highland Woodworking list three sizes (1/2", 7/8", 1-1/4") [CD9][CD10]; when the 5/8" size was added is not established. Rated diameter is a selection cue, not a promise that the tool alone establishes that exact diameter.

Companion: Veritas Scraper Shave, for non-round parts [CD7].

Shop-made variants: Farmer (2013) — osage orange and cocobolo, card-scraper blade [CD13]; Paul Sellers (2014, 2015) — from a card scraper, any radius with a round file [CD14][CD15]; Fine Woodworking reader project (2012) — cherry (1-1/8") and African blackwood (7/8"), HSS blades [CD16]; WoodCentral (2005) — Jatoba body, saw-steel blade, brass wear strip [CD17]; flat and curved soles noted by Galbert [CD1].

Small makers: William Ralston — a 1" chair devil and a straight scraper, referenced on forums [CD17]; site not checked.

Antique: the cast-iron forum example (a research lead; see history) [CD11]; George Wilson reports owning "a whole set of antique chair maker's devils" [CD4], undated.

trades

• Windsor and post-and-rung chairmaking — the primary home [CD1][CD2][CD5].
• Canoe-paddle making — manufacturer-named for the 1-1/4" size [CD5].
• Paint stripping on spindles — Paul Sellers [CD14].
• No additional use was located in the named sources.

lineage

• ancestors: the card scraper and its holders (the "holder fixes the bare card's failures" pattern in Card Scraper, No. 80 Cabinet Scraper); no named inventor or dated founding event is known [CD1].
• not the same tool as the Traviscraper / Spokescraper — James Mursell's 2020 tools for a seat's hollow and flat/convex surfaces; different maker, era, material and target geometry; no documented lineage [SP8].
• contemporaries: Spokeshave — Galbert: "I don't use chair devils much, preferring the finish cut offered by a spokeshave, but there are areas where the wood simply won't shave cleanly" [CD1]; Drawknife; Travisher / Inshave / Scorp for seat hollows; the Veritas Scraper Shave, marketed as the companion for non-round parts [CD7].
• an adjacent patent, not an ancestor: US 723,143, Wood-scraper, Louis F. Deffaulx (Indianapolis), filed 30 July 1902, issued 17 March 1903 — a two-handled housed wood scraper whose blade is sprung over an elastic arched bearing, in a stock with a plane (flat) bottom, for "scraping the surfaces of wooden floors, siding, furniture and the like" [CD18][CD19]. Megan Fitzpatrick calls it the closest plan she found for her grandfather's flat, two-handled gunstock scraper [CD3]. Its plane sole and broad surface use differ from a round-stock chair devil; no direct lineage has been shown, and it is not proof that chair devils existed in 1903.

history

• Galbert, "The Devil," Chair Notes, 29 March 2007 — a hand-made chair devil from fellow chairmaker Rich Pallaria, contrasted with "conventional design," which shows chair devils, including flat and curved forms, were known by then; it does not establish earliest use [CD1]. Galbert: the compression side of bent pieces "can be difficult" and "the chair devil can really fit the bill." He notes blades "can be made from any soft steel or ordered from the catalogues," and that Drew Langsner had instructions — a lead for a primary print check [CD1].
• WoodCentral, 2005 — an earlier dated discussion of commercial and shop-made tools, with a reply from Rob Lee of Lee Valley/Veritas [CD17]. Cited only for what the recoverable posts say.
• The Veritas tool is documented in discussion by 2005 and is currently sold in 2026 [CD17][CD5]. Continuous availability across the interval is not claimed without dated catalogues or archived listings.
• Two failure-fixes, from practitioners:
  • The spokeshave on compression-side or difficult grain — Galbert [CD1].
  • The bare card scraper's rippling without a sole — Schwarz: "Unlike a card scraper, chair devils have a sole, like a spokeshave or plane. This short sole does an amazing job of keeping the stick flat. If you try to clean up a stick with a card scraper, there's a good chance that you will create a rippled surface, especially in ring-porous woods... Because it plows forward with a sole, it refuses to follow ripples on the stick or to dig into soft earlywood." And: "Using a sharp chair devil, I can scrape knots or grain reversals dead smooth and free of tear-out." [CD2] A named firsthand report, not a guarantee across species, edge condition, stock and direction.
• A reported trade disagreement. A LumberJocks post reports, secondhand, that Curtis Buchanan said scraping would ruin spindles, preferring drawknife → octagon → dry → spokeshave and reserving scrapers for seats to be sanded [CD20]. Not verified against a Buchanan-authored source.
• A research lead, not dated proof. A UK forum contributor identified a cast-iron example as British and post-1903 based on its threads and linked it to Salaman's Dictionary of Woodworking Tools; this entry has not verified the object, the dating method, or Salaman's text [CD11][CD12]. A post-1903 thread standard gives a date after which the object may have been made; it does not closely date manufacture or establish an English chairmaking tradition.
• Christopher Farmer wrote in 2013 that "all the chair devils in existence are craftsman made" [CD13], although a commercial Veritas tool was discussed in 2005 [CD17]; the population may still be mostly shop-made.

✦ human side

• Peter Galbert — leading figure in the modern Windsor/greenwood-chairmaking revival (already cited independently in this corpus's Traviscraper/Spokescraper entries); the corpus's anchor citation for this tool [CD1].
• Rich Pallaria — the named maker of the specific chair devil Galbert reviews; redesigned the housing/handle proportions against "conventional design" for better leverage and sightline, per Galbert's account [CD1].
• Christopher Schwarz — the deepest independent user account found this run; "Sympathy for the Chair Devil" (2025) [CD2]. The post is paywalled past the intro; the quotes above are the full free portion.
• Sawmill Creek forum, "Veritas' unique Chair making tools" (started by Mike Holbrook, 2014-01-18) — directly fetched in full. George Wilson: "I have a whole set of antique chair maker's devils that I ought to sell. They are still like new... but they aren't in my range of interests." Bob Glenn: "As far as a chair devil goes, I made one out of a scraper blade and didn't like it. The idea sounds viable, it just didn't work for me... A draw knife, spoke shave and scraper work for me." [CD4] A genuine mixed/skeptical account, not one-sided enthusiasm — Bob Glenn is an experienced, self-taught Windsor chairmaker whose own trial did not succeed.
• WoodCentral forum thread (2005) — directly fetched. A builder ("Skip in Falls Church") planning a build from Jatoba, choosing between a leftover back-saw blade (0.025") or old circular-saw-blade steel (0.06") with a brass wear strip; Rob Lee, Lee Valley/Veritas's own President, personally replies in the thread; a separate poster names owning a "Ralston chair devil" at roughly 7/8" radius; a third references Drew Langsner's book The Chairmaker's Workshop as containing plans (not independently confirmed by this run) [CD17].
• Paul Sellers — major hand-tool-revival teaching figure; made and taught the tool as a shop-made project twice (2014 Woodworking Masterclasses video, 2015 blog/video): "Chair Devils are a great tool for refining the shape of round legs and spindles, smoothing out any irregularity or unevenness... The design can be adapted to various tapers and diameters." [CD14][CD15] Reader comments on the Masterclasses page name old saw steel, an old bandsaw blade, and a repurposed file-cabinet housing as real shop-lore blade/body stock; Sellers himself recommends the Veritas scraper set as blade stock for its consistent hardness and range of thicknesses [CD15].
• Fine Woodworking reader project (2012) — a chair devil built by woodworker Kathy Somerville and machinist "Diegel": a cherry-bodied version 12-1/2" long with a 1-1/8" cutting diameter, and an African-blackwood version 11" long with a 7/8" diameter, blades of high-speed steel secured with brass screws [CD16].
• Christopher Farmer, "Confused Grain" blog (2013-11-04) — a shop-made chair devil built from osage orange and cocobolo with brass hardware and a blade cut from an old card scraper, brass threaded inserts, stock held in a shaving horse and pulled like a spokeshave to raise curly shavings [CD13].
• Megan Fitzpatrick, Popular Woodworking (2015) — writes about her grandfather's shop-made "gunstock scraper"/"ram's horn scraper," a flat, two-handled scraper, and names the 1903 Deffaulx Wood-scraper patent as the closest plan she found for it [CD3].
• A genuine, checked split among two contemporary teaching chairmakers. Elia Bizzarri's own published, comprehensive chairmaking tool list for students names a plain "Card Scraper" for this job and does not list a chair devil anywhere [CD21]. Jeff Lefkowitz, another documented chairmaking teacher, likewise lists drawknife/spokeshave/card scraper as his hand-shaping kit with no chair devil [CD22]. Presented as an honest, unresolved split in the revival community's practice — the chair devil is not universally adopted even within the exact chairmaking-teaching community it would seem built for.
• No Reddit discussion found — searched directly, a genuine negative.

✦ proof of existence

• Galbert, 2007 — dated practitioner account of established shop-made forms, flat and curved [CD1].
• WoodCentral, 2005 — dated discussion of commercial and shop-made tools [CD17].
• Veritas / Lee Valley, current — product line, care sheet and companion product [CD5][CD6][CD7][CD8][CD9]; also sold by Highland Woodworking [CD10].
• Shop-made record — Fine Woodworking 2012, Confused Grain 2013, Sellers 2014/2015, Schwarz 2025 [CD2][CD13][CD14][CD15][CD16].
• Research leads, not proof: the cast-iron forum example and the Salaman reference [CD11][CD12]; George Wilson's reported antique set [CD4].
• Adjacent patent: US 723,143, Wood-scraper (1903) — a plane-soled housed scraper, not chair-devil proof [CD18][CD19].
• Museums: no accession located in the Wycombe Museum pages searched.

references

Reference notes after the review: CD18/CD19 — the patent's title is Wood-scraper*, not "Ram's Horn Scraper." CD23 (retailer search absence) is retired; it does not establish a market category gap. CD11/CD12 are research leads, not dated proof.*

The reviewer's corrections (12)

• BLOCKER — Exact claim: “it carries low injury risk relative to edged tools”; a beginner “can simply flip the tool …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The commercial Veritas blade is “a scraper edge (burr/burnished hook)” and the chair devil …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: US 723,143 is titled “Ram's Horn Scraper” and is “the closest documented legal/commercial …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: “Gunstock scraper” and “ram's horn scraper” are direct alternate names for “chair devil.”
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The tool is an “old English chairmaking tradition,” the antique cast-iron example is “inde …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The Veritas line has “roughly two decades of continuous commercial availability” and has b …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The tool will “true/round” stock, while another section says it “doesn't establish true ro …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The manufacturer's approximate 1/64-inch projection is a “shallow” fixed setting, and goin …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: The 45° Veritas blade grind and a shop-made 75° “working bevel” are an unresolved contradi …
• SHOULD-FIX — Exact claim: A chair devil is structurally less likely to catch on reversing grain, makes grain reversa …
• MINOR — Exact claim: “No non-chairmaking or non-woodworking trade use confirmed” and Woodcraft/Rockler's lack o …
• MINOR — Exact claim: Overall confidence is “MEDIUM-HIGH.”