Along with thanking Paul and Marya Butler for their great article on using scrapers, I wish to offer a tip to further exploit the advantages of these extremely useful and often overlooked tools. For using scrapers to put a mirror smooth surface on soft woods and on harder woods, one must continue the sharpening process outlined by the Butlers to the next level. However, continuing the process, as described below, will result in a very sharp scraper, though one with an edge that may not hold up as well for doing the rougher scraping of epoxy with its various fillers and for removing hardened paint. The coarser edge produced following the process as described by the Butlers would be more suitable for that application and would be easier to refresh.

1. Squaring the edge of a regular or a radius cabinet scraper is easily accomplished without a vise by mounting your sharp mill file in a slot cut into a block of wood. Filing of the scraper edge is then done parallel to the edge. The wood block serves as a fence like that on a jointer, to hold the scraper square to the cutting edge of the file.

2. A continuation of Step 1 is polishing the surfaces and the square edge of the scraper with a sharpening stone. Photos ONE and TWO show polishing the flat surfaces of the scraper and polishing the square edge of the scraper using the sharpening stone box edge to help maintain a square edge while polishing. To keep my hands and the camera clean I have demonstrated the polishing here without the couple of drops of mineral oil I would normally have applied to the medium-hard natural Arkansas stone. To prepare the scraper for softwoods such as pine and cedar, I would further polish the scraper to a mirror finish on a “surgical,” black hard Arkansas stone. Softwood scraping requires a sharper scraper than hardwoods does as the grain will more easily tear out instead of being cleanly sliced.

3. A polished, hard steel burnisher is the tool in my hand in photo THREE. The burnisher is drawn almost flat across the scraper surface and edge simultaneously in the directions shown. The purpose is to draw out a burr edge of metal with the friction and pressure of the burnisher in the same plane as the surface of the scraper. If I was not taking this photo, my right hand would be holding the scraper flat to the board or to a work bench edge. Practice will help you achieve a firm smooth stroke with the burnisher. With the malleability of the steel scraper, you are microscopically deforming the formerly square edge you have just filed and polished.

4. Please imagine that the scraper in photo FOUR is being held in a vise. Drawing the burnisher firmly across the burr edge I just created in step 3 (which is now pointing up), I burnish that burr out at 90 degrees to the face of the scraper, and, with a second pull of the burnisher I draw and roll that burr edge down about 10-15 degrees. That second pull with the burnisher is basically the final step to creating the cutting edge. Again as I was taking these photos, if the scraper actually being held in a vise, I would also have had my right hand fingers applying pressure to the tip of the burnisher as I was pulling and simultaneously sliding it along the length of the burr edge. Please refer to the above diagram of a, "magnified," scraper edge.

The more highly polished the initial squared edge of the scraper is, the sharper the edge you will finally be able to create with the burnishing process. There are a couple more tricks to refreshing this cutting edge as it dulls with use, but basically begin again with the file to remove the old burr edge, then proceed with the polishing and burnishing. Some scraping applications benefit from initially filing the scraper edge at a slight angle, instead of squaring it, and then pulling the cutting burr from the acute angle edge with the burnisher as described above. Triangular and oval shaped burnishers are available wherever cabinet scrapers are sold. Excellent scrapers can be made by cutting up old steel handsaw blades to the shapes and sizes that you want. That pile of ancient, dull Henry Disstons in your shop are just waiting for a useful reincarnation. Wear some gloves and with some practice, you will be amazed at the results you will be able to produce.

Donald Freix

Fish Creek