On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:58:49 GMT, John wrote:

In message , mac davis
writes
On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:05:49 GMT, John wrote:

longer, thicker scrapers are always good if you can afford them (I can't)

Type of rest can be as important with a scraper as where it is, IMO..
For stuff like you're doing, I really like a box scraper rest...
(Item G in link below)
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...at=1,330,49238

I like the simple design of that rest. Luckily I have the stock, cut off
saw and welder to make something like it so can give it a try

Cool.. if you lived in my neighborhood, I'd keep ya busy!
While you're at it, make some flat-topped rests in like 3", 5" and so on, the
sizes that you can't buy...

As you say to pointing the rest into the hole and laying the tool on
it length wise hence having a large surface area of contact would
definitely increase stability

Yes, and maybe just as important, it gets you used to good angle on the scraper
and will minimize catches..

Something else I just remembered which is probably a big factor is the
height of the rest to centreline of work piece. I was looking into this
the other week, and found that the lowest height of standard tool rest
is (using metric here) 5mm below centre, with the tool being 7mm thick (
One reason I have been looking at an upgrade to the lathe. But if I make
some rests I can drop that height

I'm going through the results of doing just that...
When I was using the 14" Jet, I bought several rests and most were a an inch too
long for use on the Jet, so I shortened them..

Now that I've moved up to the Nova I find that those rests are too short to use
on it... ya just never win..lol

As you get more experience with the scraper, you'll also have less catches..
it's actually pretty hard to get one once your technique smooths out..


I must say I only get a handful but they are often spectacular, but if I
can reduce the controllable variables maybe I will make none

I've found that as you get more experienced and more comfortable, and have
enough catches, they become much smaller.. and because you've "been there, done
that", your reaction is a lot milder, which minimizes damage to the wood, tool
and you, and keeps the laundry bill lower..

I really hadn't thought about that until I recently got the Nova and read about
the spindle sensing going on in it's brain and that if it detects a catch it
stops the motor...
I realized that it's been a long time since I had the real "thunk" kind of catch
that makes the belt slip... the few I have now are more of a "tap" and are
easily corrected..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing