In article , Gary Coffman says...

You can grind the end of an old file to the correct profile to make a
cheap scraper, though the high carbon steel won't hold up as well as
a carbide insert, and the file body may be too brittle to withstand the
required pressure.

Again, he should be aware that many modern files are case
hardened. Grinding off the teeth will give a soft scraper.


You could also make a holder for a carbide insert,
though that would require a bit more work. You can buy commercial
scrapers, though it is a bit of a specialized tool and you may have to
search a bit to find one.

The standard hand scrapers are sold inexpensively through
McMaster Carr. That's where I got mine. The HSS blade
is sharpenable on a regular pedestal grinder, the carbide
one really requires a diamond wheel to do properly.

Another approach to life is to simply take a *large* HSS toolbit
and mount to a piece of stock. That's what I did for my first
foray into hand scraping. One advantage to a small scraper like
that is you can get into the nooks and crannies:

http://www.geocities.com/noramm10566/47slide3.jpg

It's tough to do small stuff with a large, wide scraper.

Jim

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