scrape or plane?

[the_mak]

I have a 2" thick 2'x4' pine table top that I have stripped to the bare wood. I want to avoid sanding as much as possible. Would a scraper or plane be the tool to use to get the top smooth. There are some minor grooves nothing too deep. Thanks.

[fredfighter]

A good hand plane would work fine for that. A scraper would be slower and unless the scraper is also mounted in a plane body (e.g. scraper plane) it would smooth the wood but not flatten it.

Also planes tend to leave a nicer (shinier) surface on softwoods than do scrapers. Dunno why.

[Patriarch]

"the_mak" wrote in news:1138734523.442688.181220 @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

Scraping pine is often a fool's errand. Tune and sharpen a good handplane, and have a go at it.

You may end up using a little sandpaper to touch up the finished product, but it shouldn't be too much of a challenge, or cause too much dust to be stirred.

Patriarch

[AAvK]

Agreed.

I think pine is too soft for a scraper unless it's SYP, scraping is not slicing like a hand plane does, good point.

Mak pay attention to the direction of the grain too, or you'll get tear-out. The shavings must be very very *thin* as well, if not you'll get tear-out then. Super sharp blade too.

After sharpening test your blade adjustment depth settings on a clamped scrap piece only, until it's perfect. You should be able to read through the shaving, and watch this free video online:

It helps.

[Andy Dingley]

Sand it. Buy yourself a cheap sander if you don't fancy doing it by hand

- a 1/4 sheet takes a while but you get more for your money than a bigger machine, and they're always handy. Don't skimp on the abrasives either.

Planing and scraping are great, but not for this. Pine is too soft to scrape easily. Planing a table needs some decent technique and ideally a longer plane than a bench plane too (unless it's already good and flat). If you're not already a planing wizz, then you might find it hard going to get good results..

[Teamcasa]

Good advise. Dave