Scraping By

  Time for a confession, for a long time, I never used a card scraper.  I found them too hard to sharpen, and all I ever got was dust and burned fingers.  But, after many years it has become a favorite.  I use it to clean up tear out, glue smears, and general smoothing.  I really like the little card scrapers made by Sandvic.  I've tried the Lie-Nielsen, and the one I have I find a little thin.  I tend to like a thicker scraper.  Here you can see how I put the scraper about 1 1/2 inches from the edge of the bench and hold the burnisher so it touches the edge of the scraper and the bench at the same time, and run it down a few times.  This sort of cleans up the edge, and draws out the edge.

 There are a bunch of articles and tons of advice to sharpen a scraper; I'll just cover a couple tips that work for me.  First off, the edge has to be polished and square--you should be able to fell an "edge" after squaring.  If it feels round or dull, then you won't be able to turn a hook. 

 I think the biggest mistake people make with a scraper is by using a stone to hone the edge, the card scraper cuts a trough in the stone, and after a time, you end up rounding over the edges, which is exactly what you don't want.  I use a couple pieces of MDF glued face to face, and I put a piece of wet dry sandpaper on a flat surface, and use the glued up pieces to hold the scraper at a right angle ( you can see the MDF block under my drawknife sharpening post) .  The sandpaper doesn't round over the edges.  So after the edge is square and polished ( I use 800 and then 1000 sand paper ), put a touch of oil on the edge, and lightly, and I stress lightly, run the burnisher over the edge at a right angle,

Then drop to about 3º or so.  You don't need a big hook, nor do you want one.  I breaks too easily and you really have to lay the scraper over to engage the edge.  And here you can see the results, light fluffy shavings, not dust.  I have a scraper plane but honestly I like the card scraper.  I can work smaller areas and follow the little dips and problem areas without spending bunches of time flattening the whole piece.  I now use a card scraper all the time, including on my pine chair seats.

Oh, to prevent burned fingers, use a small fridge magnet right on the scraper.