Thread: What angle on the blade for a 112 scraper plane?

Hi Scott. I have sharpened mine at 45°. Pretty sure I did this because DerekC recommended it. And then you adjust the angle of the blade with the plane. Is yours complete? Mine was missing one of the brass locking "nuts" and the knob!

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi Scott. I have sharpened mine at 45°. Pretty sure I did this because DerekC recommended it. And then you adjust the angle of the blade with the plane. Is yours complete? Mine was missing one of the brass locking "nuts" and the knob!

Great. Thanks.

Yes, it's complete. Just need to do the blade and it's ready to use.

My 12 1/2 is also 45°

Here's the original instructions ...
how to sharpen scraper blades

45 it is. Thanks.

Paul Hamler shows how to do it

45 or more. The steel is relatively soft, and everything performs better if it's that plus a good quality (smooth) burr.

As recommended above, sharpen at around 45, but it's not that critical, it will still work at a much shallower angle, you don't have clearance problems with a scraper blade. The critical thing I found is the hook angle - keep your burnisher at a very shallow angle or the burr will be excessive & your plane won't cut properly. It's very easy to overdo the hook, but you'll know you've got it right when you can roll out shavings from end to end of a board. Another way to check is to lean the blade progressively further forward, if the cut improves only when the blade is leant to its limits, you're over-doing the hook.

You can use them without a hook/burr, but forming the hook work-hardens the edge, which makes it much more durable than using it without, and it 'cuts' much more cleanly. You'll find it needs frequent attention if you are working a large area (I reckon I would re-sharpen at least 3 times as often as I would a regular plane blade). Lee Valley sell a thick A2 blade for their copy of the 112 (or they did), which they recommend using without a hook. You'd probably have a hard time putting a hook on that stuff anyway - too brittle. I've not tried one so shouldn't shoot my mouth off, but I do wonder if it would be much of an advantage over the old style "soft" blades because the sorts of woods I use mine for are pretty tough on A2 & likely to microchip it very smartly.

I'm surprised D.W. hasn't already said so, but "proper" use of a standard-pitch plane with well-fettled cap-iron minimises the need for scraping, particularly if you stick to "sensible" woods. My scraper plane (a Veritas) comes out very infrequently these days, but on our continent, we are 'blessed' with some woods that I cannot persuade my best planes to cope with. You will often read that the surface left by a scraper is not as good as that left by a plane, but if you sharpen up the scraper blade and take a few light passes at the end, you should get a surface that is fit for purpose.

The two problems I had in the beginning were over-doing the hook & pushing the blade to its limits. As it dulled, I just dialed in a bit more flex on the blade & it would keep cutting, but the shavings get more "stringy" and the surface quality deteriorates rapidly. I think that sort of use is what has given scraper planes their bad reputation amongst the new breed of woodworkers. As with any cutting tool, the sharper the edge, the better they work....

Cheers,

Thanks all.
I watched all of that video - who would have thought there was so much to burnishing.
Ian, your advice as always is much appreciated and no doubt very sage.
The scraper is all sorted and I'll give it a go this weekend and report back.

Originally Posted by IanW

I'm surprised D.W. hasn't already said so, but "proper" use of a standard-pitch plane with well-fettled cap-iron minimises the need for scraping

I gotta take a play off here or there! You're right, using to use a cap iron ended my use of any scraping planes. If there's anything that a scraper is needed for after a plane, it's never more than a card and it's fairly uncommon.

Separately, the A2 blade from LV is tempered so that it can be rolled. The recent post that I made about planing boards left from 16 years ago that I found so difficult back then, the last thing I tried to plane with before spending a wad of cash on a LN 212 (now also gone) was one of the LV scrapers.

Most steel even at high hardness has enough toughness to take a small burr. I'm guessing LV recommends a square or honed edge because it cuts down on questions from users. Rolling a burr seems like a black art, but soon when the art is learned (by feel, and use) it seems transparent. Until you run into someone who can't do it.

Those planes do a better job and plane much longer with a burr because the apex isn't presented to the wood orthogonally. There is some work hardening, but I don't think the effect is nearly as much as orienting the edge so that it can be the first to punch and not have the wood punch it, if you know what I mean.

Spot on with your comment about rolling a burr and getting encouraged to try to increase shaving thickness. If the burr is huge, the shaving can be bigger, but it's a tough physical way to do things.

Stanley's scraper planes probably paralleled the rise of veneered furniture in the US in the early 1900s. 20220915_132204.jpg

That's one of those early boards. It's not like it's a easy as straight grained wood, for several reasons, but one that doesn't go away is that planing varying grain directions switching around means you'll be cutting differences in density, some oriented like end grain or runout in figure, and wood fibers that point straight up the plane bed, which even when the shaving is held down, creates something similar to trying to cut a straw in half by cutting only parallel to its length. If you can't change the angle, the straw has to bend a little before you cut through it - that's physically tough.

I think that's what's happening at least, because true runout in a poorly sawn board is probably the most difficult thing to plane cleanly if it doesn't all go one direction in the length of a plane.

Probably doesn't even drum sand that easily, but when a machine struggles, I can't feel it!!

Originally Posted by D.W.

......the A2 blade from LV is tempered so that it can be rolled.....

That's useful to know. I am content with the thinner blade that came with my "112" & have never been very interested in the thicker A2 blade. You may well be right that using 'straight' blades is more likely to get a useful result for a neophyte, but the LV model is pretty forgiving - as well as being able to alter the blade angle, being able to dial in extra bow can persuade even a poorly-prepared blade to make shavings though the surface it leaves may not be the best.

I cut my teeth on card scrapers & progressed to an 80, & I was 20+ years into using those before the big Veritas arrived on the scene. By then I was welded onto thin blades & well accustomed to turning burrs for all occasions so it took me little time to get the Veritas working for me. I was also slowly learning to use planes more efficiently by then, & scraper planes were becoming less necessary. I wouldn't call it redundant however, we have too many woods down here that can challenge the best of planes, and it is a much nicer (& easier) tool to use than the old 80. For me it's a matter of choosing which way is going to get me where I want to be with the least fuss...

Originally Posted by D.W.

...... Rolling a burr seems like a black art, but soon when the art is learned (by feel, and use) it seems transparent. Until you run into someone who can't do it...

Indeed - I can clearly remember my own learning curve. The very first time I tried burring a card scraper, I fluked the correct angle & size of burr. It was magic! Lovely fine shavings from end to end of the wild cherry board I'd been trying to tame with a smoother (that I know now was not very well set up). It took a very long time after that to get the same result consistently after sharpening & re-burring! If I hadn't had that first satisfying experience I think I would have given up in disgust & pronounced the thing utterly useless...

As I said previously, my biggest mistake was over-doing the burr, but it took quite a while for the penny to drop - I could feel the burr with my finger, so why wasn't the damned thing cutting? I guess it's pretty obvious to me now that I was curling the cutting edge too far for it to enter the wood with the scraper held at a typical angle. As you say, it's mainly a matter of 'feel' & after a while you know how hard to press on the burnisher & the angle to hold it at with little conscious input to get the edge you want. It can take quite a while to get that feel if you only use card scrapers sporadically, but I think it's well worth persevering, scrapers of all sizes & shapes find uses in my shed & over the last 40 years or so, I reckon they've saved me reams of sandpaper & eased the dust load on my respiratory system no end...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by scottbr

This is one of the planes I was given last week.

I've squared off the out of square cutting edge and now need to put a bevel on it.

What angle should it be?

Scott

Instructions are at 45 with a hook rolled on it.

But! That was a general statement to appease the masses. It's not going to work in all situations and Northern Hemisphere woods were the focus. A 45 degree bevel will last a much shorter time than a squared off edge with both having a rolled hook on them in the more difficult woods - which is pretty much all native aussie woods (even knots in pine). So play with angles and see what works. Also buy a few scrapers that fit the plane so you can swap out when dull and/or encounter different wood types.

Most important learn what pressure is needed to roll a nice sharp hook on the scraper.

This was the very first try with the rejuvenated scraper.
I might have got lucky with my burr.
It was some walnut - I think - that O bought yesterday from a place new me that sells donated used wood.
Had some marks from a thicknesser and a bit of varnish residue that the thicknesser had not removed.
Didn't get long curls, if that is the aim, but it produced a fabulously smooth surface with little effort, which I guess is the point of it.
I'll have a play with it in different woods.
So far, I'm pretty chuffed.

Scraper in action.jpg

Well done. And the plane looks in great nick!

Proper shavings is what you are aiming for, like these:

05E32944-2898-49C3-B456-DE5173554472.jpg

THIS video by Lie Nielson is a very good tutorial. My method differs only slightly in that I use a Veritas filing guide holding a well worn 1000g diamond stone to polish the bevel prior to burnishing; and I slip a piece of paper under the toe before fitting the blade to give me a bees winky’s worth of blade projection. Deneb’s example of identifying the optimum scraping angle of the blade first and matching the frog angle to it was for me a game changer.