Card scraper application

Re: Card scraper application

David Weaver

I find that stuff to actually be easier planing than scraping. Often the stuff that's absolutely rotten planing (like very ribboned very lightweight khaya) is also terrible scraping - no strength in the ribboning and it ends up fuzzy with a scraper.

You can experiment with various sizes of burrs and try to finish off a surface like that with a dull burr or a very thin scraper, but it can also end up being a time soak experimenting.

The very first scraper video I watched and experimented with showed filing the scraper, using an upright jig and then honing the scraper bottom and a face on three different stones. It really turned me off. I got a burr, but didn't understand controlling the factors of it right away. Using only a washita stone after a file solved that (it does all of the cutting and polishing just fine by itself, and burnishing the edge does anything left over), but the deburring wheel and buffer has made it now so that I don't fight to extract life out of a scraper that's not there.

like I said....

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I find that stuff to actually be easier planing than scraping

....still beyond my pay grade. However, when you come south to preach the word of hand planing you can show me. While the center with the bold grain runs predictably one way or the other (reversed in this book match) the grain on the edges changes direction unpredictable. I can feel it with the card scraper and adjust. Some is straight up. Someone experienced with a plane may do the same kind of adjusting but I think a plane blade would bridge sever of these changes. It is veneer. A tear-out would be fatal.

In furniture building there are times when no risk is acceptable. This is priceless veneer (AKA the only pieces I have with this pattern). Of course where one's risk lies depends on experience. Mine is struggling out of novice rank.

Re: like I said....

David Weaver

Ahh...i viewed the picture and mistook it for being thicker than it actually is. Yes on the chance that you can break edges off planing (or scraping - it'd be risky to use something like a #80 near the edges).

I've planed plywood without issue (I did scrape some of the veneer off edges, but that's because I don't use an 80 much and was experimenting).

AS people would've told me on the guitar forum before i headed for saner grounds "just get a drum sander, you can't tell people to scrape or plane that - it's not realistic!"