Re: Verita Hand Scrapers

First, the dial-a-burnish is worth every nickel of what it costs. Get it, it's in one of their packages. Makes your burrs much more predictable, and saves you the occasional finger gash you will otherwise acquire as you run off the edge of your scraper, or it rotates in the vise and cuts the heel of you hand. With that, and the directions that go with it, you will be able to keep two or three degrees of aggressiveness available. I keep mine in labeled slots, but still give a thumbnail check before I use 'em.

Softwood doesn't respond well to scrapers unless you're moving much more than pressing. I'm convinced it's more an art than a science there.

For hardwood, the scraper is a great tool for removing mill marks. Not the equal of a regular plane in speed, but with a medium burr, minimum bow, and a skew angle that bridges several marks, it'll clean up even the worst - those places where you might even see a bit of cutter burn. Once the cutter marks are gone, go to a fine burr, larger bow, and scrape with less skew for a finish you'll hate to hit with sandpaper.

If your jointer or planer blades are so bad that you get a burnished surface, the kind with shiny valleys and sort of crushed separators, dampen the wood first, and let it dry. It'll save you having to go back to catch burnished areas you missed which aren't taking finish like the rest.

I invariably take off more than I intend...*sigh*

Cheers -

Rob

I have a nice thin scraper, runs out to garage workshop and applies new calipers..... they say it is 0.45mm thick. It removes curles of wood on soft pine and cleans up hand plane digs around the knot holes very nicely. I have very recently used it to make the glue lines on some edge glued knotty pine go away. I have also used it to make the ends of through wedged pine tenons shine (a touch of sanding sealer helped too).

Peter

I too bought the LV kit when first learning how to use a scraper. I tried and tried with mucho frustration. Then I decided that I would try to use it without the holder. Viola! Shavings on the first try. I put it back in the holder and still could not do it. Took it out worked fine. I sent the holder back but kept the file jointer and the dial burnisher- they're great, but I only got about 9$ for the holder cause it was part of a package. If you dont have any luck with the holder, try it freehand- you wont miss it a bit.

Keep the burr sharp and when you start making dust reburnish it.

Thanks for all the info, The set will be in on Saturday and I'm sure I'll spend the day playing with it.

"Neil Larson" wrote in news:b7G4e.19495$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com:

I think the honing and burnishing are the hardest parts to get right. Once you have a scraper with a good hook, learning to use it is pretty easy -- you can feel it and see it when it's cutting right.

Sure, you can use a scraper to remove plane marks.