A cabinet scraper is a flat piece of carbon steel, usually about a 1/32 inch in thickness and about the size of an index card, say 3 x 5 inches. This is the common size and shape but there are dozens of possibilities including curves and circles as well as custom shaped contours such as the one used to create the molding along the butt, and the ram rod groove along the forend of a Pennsylvania long rifle. A scraper is tempered to a spring temper and needs to be hard but not brittle. A piece of steel from a carpenter's saw makes a good scraper. It's a trifle soft, but gets the job done.

In use a scraper falls between a fine plane and sand paper. Properly sharpened it will take fine curls of wood off a stock and will not be affected by knots or irregularities in the wood's grain. The cabinet scraper was the standard smoothing tool during colonial times.

To sharpen a scraper you will need a flat single-cut mill file 10 to 12 inches long, two pieces of wood, preferably plywood, about 1/2 inch thick and as wide as the scraper, a stone like a soft or hard white Arkansas and a burnisher. You will also need something like a good sized machinist's vice to hold the scraper.

To begin with, sharpening is really a pretty poor term for what we are going to do to get that scraper to cut properly. What we need to do is create a sharp cutting burr along the edge of the scraper. This is what will do the work. It is really an almost microscopically fine edge turned over from the leading edge of the scraper. It should be so fine that it can be barely seen except with a magnifying glass. When it's finished however, it should be a definite edge that can be felt by running the thumbnail over the scraper surface towards the edge. The nail should catch in the burr.

Start the sharpening process by preparing the edge of the scraper. It should be dead square and very smooth. Make a sandwich of the two pieces of wood with the scraper as the filling. Bring the three pieces even and clamp them in the vice, with the edge of the sandwich close to the jaws. You will be using the thickness of the three pieces to hold the file square to the edge as you dress the steel square and smooth.

Holding the mill file as square as you can, draw file along the edge, taking wood and metal down together. The thickness of the sandwich will hold the file square enough to the edge of the metal to get the job done properly. File until all the nicks and dings are out of the metal and the edge is as smooth as a file can make it.

Next, squirt a little oil on the wood and steel sandwich and oil the Arkansas stone as well. Stroke the scraper edge lengthwise with the stone until it is absolutely square and smooth. Again, the wood is acting as a guide to keep the stone square. The smoother you make the edge the more cleanly the scraper will cut in use. You are creating the foundation of the cutting edge at this point.

Next, remove the wood and clamp the scraper steel securely in the vice jaws, close to the scraper edge. Now you are going to create the cutting burr or "hook". You will do this with the burnisher.

A burnisher is a piece of glass-hard polished steel 8 to 10 inches long. In cross section it can be square, triangular or oval/round. The important things is that the burnisher be highly polished and glass hard. You can buy a burnisher at most good wood working stores or make one using a file. Polish off the file teeth to leave a glass smooth surface and add a handle. This is the tool you will use to draw out and form the steel of the scraper edge.

You are going to use the burnisher to turn the edge over on the scraper and create the cutting hook.

With the scraper held securely in the vice, place the burnisher square with the cutting edge of the scraper and draw the burnishor the full length of the scraper while bearing down firmly on the scraper. Stroke the edge of the scraper out several times. Be very careful not to go over the corner of the scraper. It's razor sharp and can inflict a very nasty wound.

Take 5-10 strokes along the scraper edge at right angles. What you are doing is actually drawing the steel out and forming a microscopic mushroom cap on the body of the scraper. You should be able to feel a slight hesitation when you slide your thumbnail along the body of the scraper and up toward the edge.

When a good edge has been established you can curl it over for better cutting by taking a few more strokes while gradually lifting the burnisher up to 2-3 degrees over dead level. Don't overdo any of this, it's actually much easier to do than to describe.

Once the scraper edge is established it will cut wonderfully smooth, making piles and curls of wood and leaving a glass like surface on the wood. It works well on tight curves, like around a pistol grip, as well as on long smooth sections. It is not affected severely by irregular wood surfaces and is the best tool of all to use on the complex surface of curly maple.

To use a scraper properly you need both hands. Take the long section between the thumb and fingers of each hand, with the thumbs on the side closest to the user. Press the thumbs forward putting a slight bow in the spring steel. Push the scraper away from you, along the long grain of the wood. As in any finishing of wood, never attempt to cut across the grain. Properly used, the scraper should produce fine curls much faster than sandpaper and much more smoothly than a plane. A touch up with very fine sandpaper will leave the finest possible finished surface.

When the scraper gets dull it's not necessary to go through the edge preparation each time. Just re-establish the shape of the hook. Clamp the scraper in the vise jaws and draw out the edge again with the burnisher. You can do this 3-4 times before you have to renew the squared scraper edge again. I hope this helps. A cabinet scraper is a very, very useful tool and one of the best surface finishers there is. It's really quite easy to set the edge once you get the knack of it. There are several commercial sharpening devices to set the scraper edge but they are all pretty expensive and totally unnecessary. The method I have just described, along with a few ideas of my own, has worked well for centuries.

Good shooting,

Ward

Copyright © 1997 Ward French