ro
Established Member
I've come across a couple of people on the internet muttering about how great scrapers are for dealing with difficult grain or just for normal smoothing.
I thought I'd see what the fuss was all about and I knocked up a quick scraper out of an old (hardpoint) tenon saw blade burnished with a carbide router bit. Well, I managed to create and turn a burr on it but it only produced dust when I tried scraping with it, so it impatiently went into the scrap box.
I was browsing Pennyfarthing Tools the other day (one of the joys of working in Salisbury) and saw they had some brand new scrapers and burnishers going for not much money. So I treated myself to a couple of scrapers and a Crown HSS burnisher:
I flattened one end with a diamond stone and raised a burr with the burnisher (I could feel the burr after the first stroke). Then turned the burr at a slight angle with another couple of strokes and tried it out on the first piece of scrap wood i had to hand.
All I can say is WOW
!
No-one said scrapers were this good!
It handled everything I threw at it just leaving a lovely smooth surface after it - very impressive, especially considering I was a scraper virgin, having no idea how to use one of these things!
Unlike my initial attempt with a saw blade and router bit I was getting lovely shavings of wood, not dust!
I've started using it whenever I can now, I even tried using it to help shape a plane tote I'm making, it excelled at that too!
So, what can I say. I'm a convert to scrapers now. And while this is the first scraper and burnisher I have used, so I have no point of comparison, they seem really good (and really good value: £2 for the Scraper and £7 for the burnisher IIRC).
I thought I'd see what the fuss was all about and I knocked up a quick scraper out of an old (hardpoint) tenon saw blade burnished with a carbide router bit. Well, I managed to create and turn a burr on it but it only produced dust when I tried scraping with it, so it impatiently went into the scrap box.
I was browsing Pennyfarthing Tools the other day (one of the joys of working in Salisbury) and saw they had some brand new scrapers and burnishers going for not much money. So I treated myself to a couple of scrapers and a Crown HSS burnisher:
I flattened one end with a diamond stone and raised a burr with the burnisher (I could feel the burr after the first stroke). Then turned the burr at a slight angle with another couple of strokes and tried it out on the first piece of scrap wood i had to hand.
All I can say is WOW
!No-one said scrapers were this good!
It handled everything I threw at it just leaving a lovely smooth surface after it - very impressive, especially considering I was a scraper virgin, having no idea how to use one of these things!
Unlike my initial attempt with a saw blade and router bit I was getting lovely shavings of wood, not dust!
I've started using it whenever I can now, I even tried using it to help shape a plane tote I'm making, it excelled at that too!
So, what can I say. I'm a convert to scrapers now. And while this is the first scraper and burnisher I have used, so I have no point of comparison, they seem really good (and really good value: £2 for the Scraper and £7 for the burnisher IIRC).
