Surform .... useful or not?

[Boxer]

I have just rediscovered a Stanley surform at the bottom of an old box.
Not totally sure what this gets used for and having done a search on this forum I was surprised it didn't have a single entry :shock:
Does anyone use one of these little tools and what for ?

Cheers
Chris

 

[AndyT]

Very good for smoothing down car body filler - but who needs to do that these days?
As a woodworking tool, I'd only use it for rough work where the finish did not matter - maybe for taking old paint or plaster off a piece of reclaimed timber.

 

[No skills]

I use mine on plasterboard to refine any odd shapes/edges etc.

Havent actually attacked a piece of wood with it yet...

 

[Tierney]

Hi,

I would only use them for rough shaping of wood, so maybe not fine hand tool working. They are similar in a way to a flat rasp; but I'm guessing that most of the raving about rasps on this forum would be because there are several different shapes and coarseness.

Because you have one, I'd say keep it, but I wouldn't buy one.

Regards,

DT

 

[Lons]

I have a couple and just for very rough work but the round file one can be very useful at times.

Bob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The little curved ones make brilliant cheese graters for hard cheeses like Parmesan!

 

[Jelly]

I use them for shaping closed cell foam for canoe and kayak outfitting, they're the only decent tool for the job... I have a set of different shaped ones for that, never used them on wood but I assume they'd be good for the work of a large rasp.

 

[Sawyer]

But how to sharpen them?
New sharpening thread anyone? :lol:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes........now.......about the bevels........

 

[Lons]

But how to sharpen them?
New sharpening thread anyone? :lol:

Yes........now.......about the bevels......Phil.p..

Now now...behave both of you (hammer)

Would be a good example to take to a sharpening get together though :twisted:

Bob

 

[Racers]

I once plained a length of oak smooth with a surform it was the only thing available and it worked quite well.

Pete

 

[RogerBoyle]

The one and only time I tried my hand at carving it was a claw and ball
I used the sureform for roughing to shape
It worked well and If i had decided to carry on with the carving i would probably have continued to use it..

Roger

 

[AndyT]

I once plained a length of oak smooth with a surform it was the only thing available and it worked quite well.

Pete

Now Pete, you can't just make statements like that and leave it all hanging... was this an awfully long time ago, before you knew any better?

Had all your other planes (I believe you have more than one...) been locked up in some sort of red-alert "incident"?

Were you on a desert island with a surform as your one luxury? ;-)

 

[dannykaye]

Planed, smooth and surform in one sentence, now I really have seen everything. I have a few that came in job lots and they are one of those tools that occasionally save the day, but I rarely use one willingly

 

[Racers]

I once plained a length of oak smooth with a surform it was the only thing available and it worked quite well.

Pete

Now Pete, you can't just make statements like that and leave it all hanging... was this an awfully long time ago, before you knew any better?

Had all your other planes (I believe you have more than one...) been locked up in some sort of red-alert "incident"?

Were you on a desert island with a surform as your one luxury? ;-)

O/K full story.

Years ago I used to repair Juke boxes etc and some where in wooden cabinets like this http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/ ... ~60_35.JPG
And someone ripped part of a leg off when wheeling it across a car park, they had castors on and the legs didn't quite touch the floor.
They didn't bring the part back so I had to scarf in a new piece, plane it flush and sand in the beading down the edge.
I used a hacksaw to cut the wood an a surform to plane it, the closet things to woodworking tools at work.
The worse bit was the the green stain, the best thing I could come up with was green Biro diluted and wiped on, it worked well and was hardly noticeable in the end.

Pete

 

[Jelly]

The idea behind surforms is not intrinsically a bad one, it might be a more useful tool if the concept was better executed.

 

[Helvetica]

Shaping an axe handle?

 

[Jacob]

Surforms are brilliant. Basically a very sharp rasp, but cheap and disposable. They last longer than you'd expect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surform

 

[rxh]

Surforms work well on soft building blocks. Also the little red plastic type with curved blade is good for easing sticking doors.

 

[Duncumb.fc]

Personally, I prefer a hand cut rasp to a surform, for the same reason as I sharpen saws myself rather than sending them to be machine sharpened.
Using a machine cut surform or rasp means that the peaks of the cutting surface are uniformly distanced, and when rasping/surforming (we can make up words right?) then the peaks have a tendency to sit in the previous cut, if that makes sense?
I'm starting to lose myself here! :?

Perhaps it's best thought of in the case of a saw here, although the same principle applies. As the saw advances, the teeth have a tendency to sit in the grooves created by the teeth. This means that the saw judders. By introducing the human error of a hand sharpened saw, the teeth never quite line up, and therefore the cut is smoother.

The same can be applied to surforms and machine cut rasps.

That was a rather long winded explanation, sorry about that! :roll:

Fraser