Hickory hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood. It is used for tool handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called "hickory stick", even though made of steel or graphite), the bottom of skis, walking sticks, and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents. Paddles are often made from hickory. This property of hickory wood has left a trace in
Spokeshave drawknife. Unlike a drawknife, but like a plane, spokeshaves typically have a sole plate that fixes the angle of the blade relative to the surface being worked. By the twentieth century metal handles and detachable blades had become the most common. A convex, wooden, variant of the spokeshave is called a travisher. Spokeshave A spokeshave is a tool used to shape and smooth woods in woodworking jobs such as making wheel spokes, chair legs, paddles, bows, and arrows. Historically, a spokeshave was made with a wooden body and metal cutting blade. With industrialization metal bodies displaced wood in mass-produced tools.