Burnishing Your Cabinet Scraper

[samson]

What do you use around the house/shop that works really well to create the burr?

Thanks,

S.

[Fred the Red Shirt]

The smooth part of a round or rattail file just above the teeth works. If you have an old dull one, you can use a belt-sander to take the teeth off entirely.

[samson]

That's a great idea. I'll try that.

Thanks,

S.

[Peter Huebner]

I've a philips screwdriver with a highly polished round chrome vanadium shaft that works well, close to the handle. It's not much of a screwdriver, but a great burnisher.

-P.

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

The burnisher I bought from Lee Valley.

Seriously though... If you have a good quality hard chromed socket extension or old engine valve, you can save the money. I don't have either handy near my wood bench, so I bought a burnisher.

Of course, once I bought the burnisher, I ended up knowing at least five people who could have given me a used valve.

[George]

The dial-a-burr burnisher is great, because you can put different angles on different scrapers for specific purposes. I have four scrapers with four angles for rough to finest scrape. Love it.

Use a marker to label the scrapers.

[Garage_Woodworks]

Got a link for that?

[Nova]

[Garage_Woodworks]

[Father Haskell]

Crank spindle from an old 10 speed. Super-hard steel, and the tapered flats are set at just the right angle for drawing the burr if you hold the spindle level.

[Puckdropper]

"Garage_Woodworks" wrote in news:47bf69f9$0$17350$ [e-mail]:

Nice job of snipping. I was going to reply with a sarcastic link to Sharpie's website, but gone is the reference to the marker. :-)

Puckdropper

[bridgerfafc]

high speed steel drill rod. cheap and easy to come by. when you go to buy it at the machinist' supply, ask for it in hard state. jobber length is fine, 3/8" to 1/2" diameter seems to be about right.

[Tim Douglass]

I use an old, smooth, butchers steel. I'm not sure I qualify it as working "really well" but it does OK.

-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

[TJ]

Back of an old Millers Falls 3/4" chisel with the pointy edge ground = off. The transparent red handle gives a good grip, is easy to find on = the sharpening bench, and is pleasing to the eye. The steel is very = satiny smooth and carries oil really well. Works best of any ho-made = burnisher materials I've tried.

--=20 Timothy Juvenal

[Dave W]

Push rod from an overhead valve engine.....rebuilders have buckets of them for free. IM humble experience, high speed steel just isn't hard enough for my best scrapers. DAve

[Andy Dingley]

Credit card.

Then you go to Lee Valley and buy a burnisher. It's no better as a burnisher than any of the myriad bits of hard, smooth steel rod I have around the house. However it does come with a ready-attached handle, which has two advantages:

If you slip with the top of a file, you take a gouge out of your scraper, requiring you to smooth the whole thing out again.

If you slip with a petrol engine valve, you run your fingers along the edge of the freshly sharpened scraper.

So if you insist on making your own, at least take the time out to put a decent handle on the thing!

[whit3rd]

I've used the shaft of a screwdriver (without nickel plating) a hardened dowel pin a ~3mm carbide rod a ~15mm carbide cylinder

The smaller diameter burnishers work well with less pressure, but the large diameters give a very uniform edge

[toolman946 via CraftKB.com]

Drill a hole in the end of a round dowel (or any handle shaped piece of wood) with a good 1/2" drill bit... shove the drill bit into the hole (butt end sticking out) and you have a hard steel burnishing tool with a handle.

Cheap and effective!

[J T]

Sat, Feb 23, 2008, 9:29am [e-mail] (Dave=A0W) doth advieth: Push rod from an overhead valve engine

I was wondering if anyone was gonna come up with that. Works as well as anything, and better than most.

JOAT

10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Prefer Hillary For President - Bumper Sticker I do not have a problem with a woman president - except for Hillary.

[NoOne N Particular]

Haven't heard this one yet. I am not a scraper expert, but I have been using the shaft from an old shock absorber.

Wayne