On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:08:33 -0500, samson wrote:

Scraping really tears up wood.

S.

Ok.. since your post said beginner:

Any tool tears up wood if not sharp, at the proper angle, over hanging the tool
rest, etc..

Most folks experimenting with scrapers contact the wood at the same angle they
would with a gouge, and get terrible results..

A sharp scraper uses the burr produced by sharpening to cut the wood... It's
usually brought in contact with the wood at a 90 degree angle or sometimes
actually pointed down a bit... Very scary at first because you do a lot of
things that everyone has told you to NEVER do with gouges..


Also, since you're using just the burr on the edge of the tool (and very light
pressure) it doesn't last long and needs to be sharpened often..

There are many ways to sharpen or burnish a scraper but works very well for me
is to use a belt sander with the table a few degrees of 90 degrees..
Most scrapers come with a very slight bevel/angle so that you can use the edge..
I've actually set my sander table to about -3 degrees and put the scraper on the
table "upside down", in the theory that the burr is created better if the grind
is toward the top of the bevel as opposed to from the top.. YMWV



mac

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