Thread: What one scraper to buy?

The one with the curved edge is my preferred shape.

Jim Carroll has a good scraper that he reshapes. It may be worth getting in touch with him

Usually a good weightd scraper will do most of the work.

The Robert Sorby 40mm wide one is great for this.It has the mass to sit on the toolrest easily.

In recent times the Woodcut Negative Rake scraper is gathering points for getting a great finish, again 40mm wide but sharpened on both sides.

Remember they are both finishing tools not generally used for hogging out the bowl centre.

Thanks that's a great start
With the second option I suppose it is like two scrapers in one, being able to use it upside down. Is it more difficult to sharpen, being sharp on both sides?

Check Jake Gevorgian on Utube. He uses a similar chunk of steel as a skew. Very interesting. Phil

Originally Posted by bassmansimon

Thanks that's a great start
With the second option I suppose it is like two scrapers in one, being able to use it upside down. Is it more difficult to sharpen, being sharp on both sides?

It is quite easy to sharpen , very much like a skew chisel but you swing the tool around in your toolrest.

Would the robert sorby one give a great quality finish? I struggle getting a nice finish on the end-grain of blackwood and sometimes camphor, and no amount of sanding seems to help, as the timber feels "furry" if that makes sense

I bought a couple of Hamlet scrapers a while back and find that I hardly use any other tools. My bowls and platters are entirely made with them. Good heavy, hard steel that holds an edge well. Will buy Hamlet when I need other tools too.

I use scrapers a lot on my bowls, and for just about everything else. Preference, and this may vary if you have a smaller lathe, is 1 to 1 1/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch thick. This gives enough mass to extend out a bit over the tool rest and get no vibration which you can't do with a 1/4 inch thick scraper. It is also wide enough to stall any lathe out there, well at least the way I wield this particular weapon. Now, as for nose profile, if you are getting one, you want a round nose scraper. Basic shapes are inside scrapers, which are ground/swept back to the left side of the scraper. There are outside scrapers, which are ground/swept back to the right side. Note here, these are older before there were chucks names because you would mount on a face plate, and turn without reversing the bowl, so one for inside, and one for outside. With the round nose scraper, more of a U shaped nose, and you could turn both inside and outside.

If you go to You Tube and type in robo hippy, I have a clip up where I turn a bowl with just scrapers, and talk a little about them.

robo hippy

Thanks for the advice. Is there any particular reason you couldn't use the one scraper (left hand edge curved) on both the outside of a bowl when on the faceplate, and then on the inside of the bowl when mounted from the foot in a chuck?

I saw your youtube video "robo hippy turns a bowl with scrapers", and it seems (on mute - i can't play sound where I am at the moment) that it is all done using the left hand edge of a rounded scraper.

As long as you reverse the bowl, the left sweep scraper will work fine. I also like the swept back edge for the high angle shear scrape/cut for cleaning up my tool marks. The round nose will do this as well. I do have a bunch of different profiles from square nosed (more for boxes) to ) shaped, to the swept back ones, and negative rake scrapers. They all have their uses.

robo hippy

Bassmansimon,

I have one of these, made in China, by Penn State Industries. It is 3/8 inch thick and has a long handle. I would bet P&N would have the same thing.

Benjamin's Best 1-1/2" HSS Round Nose Scraper at Penn State Industries

My favorite one is a high speed steel planer blade 3/8 X 2 1/2 X 12 inches, ground in a shallower curve than the above. A heavy scraper does not bounce around. When you are taking off the last tissue paper thin slices before sanding any decent high speed steel scraper will do, as you need to resharpen to get that burr that is doing the shaving.

I grind mine upside down to get a nice burr on the edge and use it nose down (trailing position). I do a swipe on the grinder and make 2 or 3 passes, then grind again.

I have a piece of bone dry walnut on the lathe, hard as concrete, crazy grain, and tearing out like crazy. I used an Easy Finisher round carbide tool for hollowing the bowl. I am slowly shaving off over 1/8 inch of tear out with the above scraper and technique.

You must go slowly, resharpen frequently, and have patience. Then sand using sandpaper as if it were free. Using dull or clogged paper just makes heat and glazes the timber. leaving all the tool marks and tear out.

The first photo is of a set of used Craftsman scrapers I got for $40. At the top in the second photo is the planer blade. The rest are the junk tools I made to use until the right tool at the right price became available. I still use most of them on dirty wood with nails and rocks imbedded.

If you need to see photos of the grinding angle and trailing position, I can do that.

I have a Crown tools evelution comes with several scrapers and a cutting head I sharpen it upside down touch up with an easy lap diamond cut realy nice and can be used for deep hollowing and under cuting not cheap but works.

Ian

One side note on scrapers, and that is the tang. I think all of the commercial scrapers that come with handles are weak. Mostly it is a tapered square tang that is pounded into a round hole. Not a good fit, and for how heavily I use them, not sturdy enough to abuse. I prefer ones like this:

Thompson Lathe Tools

You make your own handle, like a sandwich. The center piece (or meat and cheese if you will) is the same thickness as the scraper. You use the bandsaw to cut out a rectangle the proper size of the tang on the scraper you will use in it. Then the outside/bread is two other pieces glued on either side of the center, to make a square blank. It isn't much of an effort to center and turn it. put on a ferrule, and pound your scraper in. No epoxy needed, and a very secure and sturdy fit. To pound it in, I insert the scraper, and over a work bench table leg (the middle of the table can bounce), pound it on the leg, butt end on the table. This drives the scraper down into the handle. It also erases the nub left from parting off the handle.

robo hippy

I picked up an unhandled Sorby 1" Skew at a clearance sale for $10.
I didn't need another skew so I reground it as a swept back scraper & it is now my favourite scraper.
It still has a bit of the grind from the skew giving it a negative rake at the tip.
It looks a bit like a mix of the two tools in Jim's links.