Cabinet / Card Scrapers.

[WhiskeyJack]

@muttley HALP!!!

Not sure if you know or not but i have recently joined a local group of woodworkers just to kind of keep me semi motivated and doing a bit of learning and what not. Get me out of the house once a month lol. Great bunch of dudes. Recently i FINALLY kicked off my basebaord project and i have every thing cut to width and all that but now i have to do the final prep before staining and clear coating etc. At our last monthly meeting gab sesh and practical show and tell i mentioned this as my "work in progress update" and i lobbed a joke at the lads at how "exicited" i was to kick of sanding 800+ ft of hemlock. After i said that i noticed an older dude over in the corner kinda pursed his lips and shook his head and whatever so i was like whatever you boomer fuck my joke was a solid 7/10 fuck you if you r going to be a dick about it. Anyways, we do the meeting and and the lesson and thne it's the wind down soicalizing part of it and this old fuck comes over to me and strikes up a convo about my baeboards. He was impressed i was tackling a mundane chore as so many others would just o buy a finished MDF baseboard and call it a day. He respected my patientce but told me i would be doing a diservice to the wood to sand it. He insited that i use a card scraper on them and then he walked around this guys shop until he found and showed them me and give me a very rough demo of it.

Between that and recalling you singing the praises of cabinet scrapers / card scrapers a couple years ago i bought two and i bought the Veritas Burnish tool. I have spent a few hours watching youtube and reading countless how to's but Mutt, i don't know what the fuck i am possibly doing wrong but i am not seeing the results i should be seeing. I 100% understand thingslike this take time and practice but after weeks of nights in my garage prepping, trying failing, going back and resetting the card rince lather repeat, i'm still just getting fucking dust and incredibly fine fine, like steel wool type fine curls from my efforts.

I have followed along with many youtube videos and how too's on how to prep the card for burnishing and burring, i spent money i don't really have on that Veritas Burnishing tool. I feel like i am doing all that needs to be done to get that scraping nicely but dude. It just isn't going well. Maybe i am not applying enough pressure ot get those burrs but i have tried to over burr and i have tried how the manual has suggested but nope. NOt seeing the results i am seeing on you tube with these guys getting these dollar bill sized curls comeing off their scrapers. I just don't get what i am doing wrong or where i am going wrong in getting the scrapers prepared? It's entirely possible it's all in my technique too. But again, i have tried varying amounts of pressure, varying angles varying degreees of curevature in how i hold it. ANd all that does for me is make varying degrees of dust as output -OR- leaves a very rough shitty finished surface behind (this result usually after applying maybe too much pressure, i feel like this makes sense)



Any advice you have for me here would be great.


This was the tool i snagged. (On the advice of a few of the other guys in that meeting that night)

THe Veritas Burnishing Tool

[Armistice]

TIL about card scrapers... and just watched a 20 minute video of a guy sharpening one.

[muttley]

Cabinet scrapers are a real asset on two fronts. They are a cutting tool rather than an abrasive tool so once you have them down they will always give you a finer finish than sanding. I always finish with cabinet scrapers. The second reason being that if you hate sanding you can reduce the amount of sanding you need to do.

Let me know what process you are using to prep the scraper?

You need to get the edge perfectly square and polished with a good "nick" free edge. I use a diamond stone. The first set takes time but regular polish and pull is possible from that point until you need to revisit the set.

The other most common area people mess up when sharpening scrapers is over burnishing that edge. What you are trying to do is "draw" or "pull" an edge and roll it over to form a hook. Over working it will dull that edge you have spent time forming and ruin that hook.

I don't like those preset burnishing tools. To do it properly you need a two part process, the first with the scraper flat, draw the edge. Then with the burnisher held firm you pull the hook at about 5 degrees or so. An important bit of info is coming up so if nothing else remember these......,

The burnisher MUST be harder than the steel you are using for the scraper.

Only use ONE pass when you draw the edge and ONE pass when you fold the hook over.

My go to burnisher is an old small triangular bench file that I ground the teeth off and polished the edges to give a nice rounded edge to that also has a flat that I can use to judge my angles. The burnisher needs to be polished nicely too.

My workshop is rammed with stuff right now while I'm on this stable conversion but I will try and grab my scrapers and burnisher for a video of a few pics.

[muttley]

I also meant to mention.... Don't be down hearted if you don't get it right away. It took me a long while to truly get it right. The light bulb moment was using only a single pass to draw the edge and a single pass to form the hook. An old guy showed it to me over forty years ago and I remember the moment vividly.

Maybe have a chat with the guy on your class, he obviously knows his stuff if he uses scrapers and he will have his method and preferred tools but I would guess they wont be a million miles from what I do.

[WhiskeyJack]

Ok thanks Mutt. I think maybe you found my error. I think I am over burnishing. Out of frustration I was really going to town on it. So I suspect that is where I'm going wrong. Also maybe way too much pressure too.

I don't have Diamond stones either. I have awhet stone that appears to be wrote off its covered in some thick goo. No idea what that's all about.

I'll have to walk you thru my prep here shortly. I'll take some pics on my break at noon.

[muttley]

Get a mental picture in your head of what you are attempting to achieve. Essentially you need to get a clean crisp polished square edge to the scraper and then draw that edge to a point and then pull it over to a hook. One pass for each is all that's needed with decent firm even pressure along the edge. Multiple passes are hard to keep consistent and that is where I have seen most people new to the process mess up. They end up with a wavy and dull hook which is exactly what you don't want.

The biggest cause of "gunk" on wet stones is oil or other carriers mixing up with the dust and dirt and embedding itself in the grit of the stone. There are ways to "dress" a stone which you can google or give me a few pics and I can point you to some tips. The gunk rarely goes that deep but you want to keep the stone flat when you either clean it or dress it. Never mix water and oil on a stone. Once you have used one method stick with it. To make a stone last longer keep them in a tub of the lubricant you are using on it. Diamond stones are slightly different in their care process as are Japanese water stones which are what I use mostly. I do have rough stones and loads of small slip stones that I use with oil for various tasks though..

[WhiskeyJack]

@muttley

We had our monthley meeting get together Thursday night and I took my issue to them. Turns out everything I was doing was right, the only thingi was technically doing wrong was holding it at the wrong angle and getting carried away with the burnishing tool. No one saw anything wrong with my technique on preparing it or even using it. The one dude told me things to -LISTEN- for and what to feel for.

It was also declared that I need to stop watching just any old wood working YouTube. They all agreed the two videos I watched were ridiculous and that if those guys wanted to see planer style shavings they should be using planers and not scrapers. It was a great night. I ate like 16 cookies and learned tons. Reaching out to that group was probably one of the best decisions I have made in recent months.

Also, it was decided that I should use my 13inch planer to help me with all this baseboard and casing. They weren't aware I had to prepare and finish 800+ feet of the stuff. So the old guy who suggested the card scraper felt kind of bad but still stands firm that am not to sand it hahaha. Let the planer do it. But then the room was also divided because three of the guys felt that after I run it thru the planer I should go at it with 220 and up to 300 grit sand paper if I am going to stain it.

So I'm going to take the Muttley mantra and test on scrap and see what results I like best. Sanded after planimg or just planing. Stay tuned.

[WhiskeyJack]

The biggest cause of "gunk" on wet stones is oil or other carriers mixing up with the dust and dirt and embedding itself in the grit of the stone. There are ways to "dress" a stone which you can google or give me a few pics and I can point you to some tips. The gunk rarely goes that deep but you want to keep the stone flat when you either clean it or dress it. Never mix water and oil on a stone. Once you have used one method stick with it. To make a stone last longer keep them in a tub of the lubricant you are using on it. Diamond stones are slightly different in their care process as are Japanese water stones which are what I use mostly. I do have rough stones and loads of small slip stones that I use with oil for various tasks though..

Ok perfect. I will send along some pictures as I need to get my stones taken care of. One of the guys was kind enough to lend me some stones to get my scrapers tuned up do ill follow up with pics shortly.

Thank you for the off topic (music / instrument) related stuff.

[WhiskeyJack]

The biggest cause of "gunk" on wet stones is oil or other carriers mixing up with the dust and dirt and embedding itself in the grit of the stone. There are ways to "dress" a stone which you can google or give me a few pics and I can point you to some tips. The gunk rarely goes that deep but you want to keep the stone flat when you either clean it or dress it. Never mix water and oil on a stone. Once you have used one method stick with it. To make a stone last longer keep them in a tub of the lubricant you are using on it. Diamond stones are slightly different in their care process as are Japanese water stones which are what I use mostly. I do have rough stones and loads of small slip stones that I use with oil for various tasks though..

Ok perfect. I will send along some pictures as I need to get my stones taken care of. One of the guys was kind enough to lend me some stones to get my scrapers tuned up do ill follow up with pics shortly.

Thank you for the off topic (music / instrument) related stuff.

Mutt,

This the system i bought for sharpening some chisels and planer blades.



The state it is in is now. Let me know if the link works for you. If not I can email it to you.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SU8Svt9TXPKxKRny7