Shinto Rasps

Sharp-toothed tools

Written by Christopher Cunningham

From Issue November 2015

Shinto's Planer Saw Rasp (top) and 9" Saw Rasp

Over the years I’ve gathered up a lot of rasps, usually with high hopes that their shark-like rows of teeth would cut through wood with ease, but none did much more than gnaw. I’d never grown fond of any rasp until I bought a Shinto Planer Saw Rasp. It's just as effective rounding the tip of a dory’s oak stem as it is fine-tuning spruce tenons for a Greenland kayak. While I’ve always just accepted that the Shinto works well, I’d never taken a really close look to see why. At first glance it looks nothing like an ordinary rasp. Instead of being a bar of gray steel with rows of teeth, the Shinto is a lattice of what appear to be wavy hacksaw blades.The lattice design helps to prevent clogging, not so much because the open structure provides space for the wood debris—most of that gets pushed away with every stroke—but because the teeth aren’t in rows. It’s easy to push one person off a chair; difficult to shove a row of congregants off a pew. The vast majority of the teeth on the Shinto are loners, like the single person on a chair. There are some shoulder-to-shoulder pairs where the blades touch and that’s where little bits of material get stuck. Compare that to an ordinary rasp where the clogs accumulate in the rows.

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Comments (7)

Dennis Lancaster says:

November 3, 2015 at 1:21 am

I purchased both of these fine rasps not long ago and they are everything this article states. An amazing and very worthwhile tool.
Ben Fuller says:

November 3, 2015 at 1:24 am

How does this compare with a cabinet maker’s rasp?
1. Christopher Cunningham says:
  
  November 3, 2015 at 2:05 am
  
  Cabinet maker’s rasps have one flat face and one curved face, with the same type of teeth covering both sides; there are several different grades of teeth—called grain—from coarse (grain 1) to fine (grain 15). The edges of these rasps are sharp and toothed, meant for cutting notches. The top-of-the-line rasps are handmade with each tooth “stitched” with a cutting tool called a barleycorn pick and a special hammer. Each tooth has to be made with the same impact of the hammer to be raised to a uniform height. The pattern of the teeth is slightly irregular so the rasp won’t leave grooves like a machine-made rasp will. Handmade rasps are pricey, from around $60 to more than twice that.
  I took a look at some hand-stitched rasps at a woodworker’s tool store and under magnification the teeth showed the same “Half Dome” shape as the rasps I own, but had their cutting edges high, where they’d be more effective.
  1. eric hvalsoe says:
    
    November 4, 2015 at 2:20 am
    
    I use the saw rasp, a very effective tool, brutally sharp, with good control. I think it would be worth having the planer saw rasp as well: Handles attached to the end of the rasp often get in the way. Speaking of rasps, another good tool is the horseshoe rasp. It’s a big meaty thing—a conventional, large flat bar, course and fine sides with filed edges so you can work along a corner. No handle, not the ones I have used. They may suffer some of the same design deficiencies pointed out by Chris, but I find that a proper horseshoe rasp will last me at least a few years with a fair amount of use. They’re generally found at tack shops or grange supply houses.
Paul Montgomery says:

November 4, 2015 at 5:46 am

I bought my Shinto rasp about 25 years ago while living in Japan. I needed a few tools to maintain the old building I was living in and couldn’t find a rasp that I was used to and so settled for the Japanese version of a rasp. It didn’t take me long to realize I had stumbled onto something great. It has always intrigued me how it can peel away the wood so fast yet leave a relatively smooth surface. And even after 25 years of frequent use it still cuts well enough that I’m not looking to replace it anytime soon.
Don Lincoln says:

November 6, 2015 at 4:37 am

I bought the Shinto planer rasp maybe 8 or 9 years ago to use for building my Penobscot 14. I don’t recall it being too expensive then, maybe $20 or $30. It immediately became the go-to tool for everything I needed to do rough or fine. It really is an amazing tool and I couldn’t imagine going back to other rasps. Removing the front handle never occurred to me. It mostly gets in the way, and I will definitely remove it and see what effect that has.
Tim Yeadon says:

November 19, 2015 at 3:38 pm

The cutters on a Shinto rasp always reminded me of tiny-toothed bandsaw blades riveted together. Very effective.