Cabinet Scraping

[morpheus83uk]

Hello,

I have been doing some cabinet scraping and it is really hard on the thumbs so I have to continually take breaks from it and it takes forever. I was looking at some of the holders that are available and wondered what peoples thoughts are regarding the below:

Veritas Cabinet Scraper

The Veritas Cabinet Scraper can be used to smooth glue lines or surfaces such as panels and table tops, or where there is tricky grain, without tear out, digs or gouges. The sole is longer and the handles have been placed further back and slightly...

www.axminstertools.com

Veritas Cabinet Scraper Holder

Absorbing the heat and stress normally levied on the hands when cabinet scraping, this scraper holder made in glass reinforced nylon with brass fittings will take traditional cabinet scrapers 140 to 150mm long. The blade can be given an appropriate bow...

www.axminstertools.com

Rider No. 80 Scraper Plane

The Rider No. 80 cabinet scraper produces a clean even finish and is ideal when used to smooth difficult grain over large areas. Tightening the knob, behind the blade, causes a slight bow in the blade. This increases the bite and hence the thickness of...

www.axminstertools.com

I have read Paul Sellers blog about the rider scraper plane not being a plane but I am wondering what peoples thoughts are and preferences? Would it even make my use of the cabinet scraper any more efficient and easier on my thumbs?

Also does anyone have any experience with the Veritas Burnisher? Veritas Variable Scraper Burnisher

Thanks

James

 

[thetyreman]

I wear gloves when using a card scraper, it really helps 1/give you more grip and 2/reduced how much heat you can feel, the no80 is good depending on what you are doing, it's very good for bigger panels where flatness is important although it'll never be as flat as a hand plane, I would recommend either a vintage stanley or record no 80 or 81 or the new veritas, the problem with the veritas is it has a thumbwheel, I preferred a vintage stanley 80 because of the proper butterfly shape key, but I own the veritas 80.

 

[Jacob]

Stanley 80 is very good. £20 ish on ebay.

 

[Ollie78]

I have a Stanley scraper plane, its not a number 80 but similar and has a wooden base.
I find it OK but it just doesn't have the control or "bite" because you can't adjust the angle like you can freehand.
I make sure I have a few scrapers sharpened up and when they get hot I swap for a cold one.
You can get thumb guards but I would probably lose them.

Ollie

 

[Droogs]

I use a #80 one a Stanley and one a Faithful. Both great once fettled. If i do have to use a blade on its own I use a small block of MDF with a bevel at each end held horizontaly and held in place by my thumbs, a bit less sore & hot

 

[morpheus83uk]

I wear gloves when using a card scraper, it really helps 1/give you more grip and 2/reduced how much heat you can feel, the no80 is good depending on what you are doing, it's very good for bigger panels where flatness is important although it'll never be as flat as a hand plane, I would recommend either a vintage stanley or record no 80 or 81 or the new veritas, the problem with the veritas is it has a thumbwheel, I preferred a vintage stanley 80 because of the proper butterfly shape key, but I own the veritas 80.

Thank you for that why do you prefer butterfly key shape opposed to the thumb wheel?

Its looking like a Stanley No 80 plane! I assume then by the response they save your thumbs from the heat and also fatigue? Is the Rider No 80 just a cheaper copy of the Stanley and not as good?

I would assume with any of the above products you can use any cabinet scraper in them?

 

[thetyreman]

Thank you for that why do you prefer butterfly key shape opposed to the thumb wheel?

Its looking like a Stanley No 80 plane! I assume then by the response they save your thumbs from the heat and also fatigue? Is the Rider No 80 just a cheaper copy of the Stanley and not as good?

I would assume with any of the above products you can use any cabinet scraper in them?

the vintage no80 adjustment is better yes in my opinion, only marginally though, yes using a no80 is much easier once set up and sharp to go for longer time periods, and yes the rider brand I would not trust (but I have never used one so don't take my word for it)

vintage stanley or record will be well made, veritas is very good and a bit weightier than the vintage ones, it's nice but not necessarily better than the old ones, good luck!

 

[thetyreman]

also with a card scraper you can easily create a concave surface in one area and take too much off, in some cases this matters, in others not so much.

 

[thetyreman]

the no80 and 81 has a 45 degree angle on it and hooked edge so it is a bit different to the card scraper, I use a honing guide to sharpen mine, it's one of the only things I ever use a honing guide for.

 

[xy mosian]

I find the thicker scraper blades do rather need a lot of force from the thumbs. My favourite blade is the Sandvik, can you still get them? These being on the thinner side they need less force from the thumb.
I agree about the fixed angle of the blade of the 80's. Sadly sometimes I gets it right, more often I need to start with the burnisher again. perhaps it's a lot down to not using it very often. Still when set up properly it is a joy to use.
The chap who taught me to sharpen a scraper called it a 'ticketer', the name coming from the noise made as the face of the blade was burnished as it lay on a bench.
geoff

 

[IWW]

I use card scrapers a lot, but usually only for small areas and the job is finished before my thumbs complain too loudly. Recently, I helped a neighbor scrape thick poly varnish off a very large table & my thumbs soon let me know they were not going to serve for the duration of that job! So I spent 10 minutes or so making myself a holder along the lines of the one from Veritas:

That saved the day (& my thumbs) after some experimentation around setting the blade exposure to give a comfortable grip. However, it's definitely not as controllable & versatile as using the scraper "freehand", as a previous poster pointed out.

I've long had a #80, which I used to use a lot more than I do now. As I got better at setting up my smoother planes, it got less & less use & now rarely comes out.

The "secret" (which is no secret), to all scrapers is preparation of the hook. I think the most common mistake we make when starting out is over-doing it. With the fixed angle of the #80 type holders it needs to be spot-on to make nice shavings & not dust (or nothing at all!). Just a couple of light-ish strokes with the burnisher or 'ticketer' held barely off 90 deg to the blade, usually suffices.

With a hand-held card scraper or adjustable blade-angle scraper planes like the #112, the amount & angle of the hook is less critical, but I find there is still a 'sweet spot' that works most efficiently. This will vary somewhat for each person, depending on your hand size & preferred grip. These are matters you eventually learn by experience & it becomes automatic....

Cheers,
Ian

 

[TRITON]

Fabric elastoplasts. Wrap a couple around each thumb to act as a bit of insulation

 

[Keith Cocker]

I have the Veritas holder and the Axminster Rider no 80. Both save painful thumbs. Or rather, since I have Arthritis, more painful thumbs.

 

[D_W]

A stanley 82 is nice for that kind of work (talking to Ian's post and not the OP). I've had no luck making a stanley 80 productive compared to a plane with a cap iron, but the 82 can be nice on floors and long surfaces (especially if the odd staple may be in there somewhere).

Backwards from cards, the blade on an 82 is hard and can only just be rolled a little bit and is more aggressive ( but the surface shows it) with no burr.

As far as a small burr goes on a card scraper - I have two thoughts. always polished always with a burr (the better the polish, the finer the burr can be, but within reason - washita polish is good for a scraper, and scrapers are soft enough that a washita cuts them very well - one stone does the whole thing after filing), but if you start the burr small, it gives you room to roll it bigger before you have to refresh the entire edge.

it also helps prevent rolling it over too far - if you roll a small burr over, then there's less room to keep rolling a longer burr later.

heat is the biggest problem I've had with card types, though (like some here, I have mild arthritis, too - too much need for heavy flex can aggravate it, but other than things like this or coping saws, loose-handed hand tooling usually warms things up and provides some relief).

 

[D_W]

Hello,

I have been doing some cabinet scraping and it is really hard on the thumbs so I have to continually take breaks from it and it takes forever. I was looking at some of the holders that are available and wondered what peoples thoughts are regarding the below:

Veritas Cabinet Scraper

The Veritas Cabinet Scraper can be used to smooth glue lines or surfaces such as panels and table tops, or where there is tricky grain, without tear out, digs or gouges. The sole is longer and the handles have been placed further back and slightly...

www.axminstertools.com

Veritas Cabinet Scraper Holder

Absorbing the heat and stress normally levied on the hands when cabinet scraping, this scraper holder made in glass reinforced nylon with brass fittings will take traditional cabinet scrapers 140 to 150mm long. The blade can be given an appropriate bow...

www.axminstertools.com

Rider No. 80 Scraper Plane

The Rider No. 80 cabinet scraper produces a clean even finish and is ideal when used to smooth difficult grain over large areas. Tightening the knob, behind the blade, causes a slight bow in the blade. This increases the bite and hence the thickness of...

www.axminstertools.com

I have read Paul Sellers blog about the rider scraper plane not being a plane but I am wondering what peoples thoughts are and preferences? Would it even make my use of the cabinet scraper any more efficient and easier on my thumbs?

Also does anyone have any experience with the Veritas Burnisher? Veritas Variable Scraper Burnisher

Thanks

James

Nobody ever likes this answer, but using a double iron plane with a cap iron is better as long as the box is rigid enough to butt it up against something.

Scrapers if not or if something is too thin to stay flat under a plane - like a long thin box side.

No experience with the veritas burnisher - just make sure your burnisher is much harder than the srcraper, whatever it is. Can be a very good quality screwdriver shaft (even some of the HF $2 screwdrivers here have an ultra hard plating on them), or a tiny carbide rod (that was the rage here - find those as round blanks for shaping into machine tools).

 

[IWW]

A stanley 82 is nice for that kind of work (talking to Ian's post and not the OP). I've had no luck making a stanley 80 productive compared to a plane with a cap iron, but the 82 can be nice on floors and long surfaces (especially if the odd staple may be in there somewhere)....

I did use my 80 for some of it, but the table top is made as multiple frame & panel sections (it was custom-made for him a few decades ago by an old Spanish carpenter, ostensibly to a traditional design), and neither the fit of the panels nor the surface finish were terribly precise. It appeared to have been finished with a belt sander, which left mild undulations that even the short sole of the 80 could not follow without cutting deeply into the 'hills' in order to clean the 'dales'. I would cheerfully have jack-planed the whole damned thing to level, but he was determined to preserve the original surface as much as humanly possible, just remove the thick, yellowed polyurethane.

Scraping was the only practical way I could think of that would comply with his wishes. And my challenges didn't end there, the wood used was recycled building material & contained quite a few hidden bits of nails, Fortunately, as someone has noted above, restoring a card scraper after hitting a nail is easier than restoring a plane blade!

When the job was done, we had a very pleasant dinner accompanied by some rather good aged wines, which provided some analgesia for my aching thumbs....

As I said, I don't use my 80 as much as I once did, but it's still handy on occasion. There are some woods that I cannot plane to my satisfaction even with my best smoother and a most carefully-set cap-iron, but they can be easily defeated by scraping. When well set up, the 80 can roll shavings off the worst of the worst woods (which abound in our wide, brown land). Granted, the average shaving thickness would be somewhat less than half a thou, so it takes twice as many strokes or more than a plane, but for a small area, the difference doesn't amount to all that much & the end result is more predictable.....
Cheers,
Ian