Thread: Melbourne Scraping Class Reflections

Hello,

Can someone who went to the recent scraping class tell me what participants needed to bring with them?

Also what did the $300 cover. Obviously instructors time, venue and some nibbles but are you expected to have your own scraping tools and materials etc?

I'm trying to work out if it's worth me putting my hand up for the next course as I don't have a surface plate or other required tools etc. Only some hand scraping tools from my dad.

Thanks,

Simon

Originally Posted by Machtool

http://www.andersonscraper.com/Anderson-Hand-Scrapers.php

I bought that down, just a few months ago, so it was here to show you guys, because its in the Morgan book. It was $91 plus $31 postage for $124 delivered.

I think it’s the spring in the blade that lends itself to bump mottling, so well.

Nice people to do business with, I had been speaking to Allen Hoople of A & W precision. And I told him about the class, he sent down 2 HSS blades free of charge, for the guys to try. We never really got to use them much, as we run out of time on the Turcite.

If any of you guys want one, get your heads together on a group buy, and maybe put it through someone’s Shipito account to save on postage.

Regards Phil.

Is that the solid shank type or hollow type Machtool?

I have the solid type

Originally Posted by simonl

Also what did the $300 cover. Obviously instructors time, venue and some nibbles but are you expected to have your own scraping tools and materials etc?

G’day Simon.

If you have time, you could read the thread were all the planning took place. That would answer a lot of questions.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/scraping-class-melbourne-138060/

In short, the $300 provided everything we would need for the weekend. It was designed so you could get off a plane, catch a Taxi to here, and not want for a thing all weekend. There’s enough gear here to turn up with nothing, and get straight into it. And included things like Canode to take home and keep practicing.

You want to look at it like $350. The cast iron blocks would be mandatory. They worked so well, in that they are easy to hold, and everyone is working on the same thing.

Food was a bit more than nibbles, several guys turned up in Taxi’s or lifts in from the bride. No one had to leave the premises during work hours.

Those blocks will be more like $60 next time. The raw material ended up being $42.48 each.

Then there was some extra’s. Joe made up some home made scrapers to sell, I found some cheap Sandviks, there were Aussie made Carbide bits, and there was a bit of buy swap and sell over the weekend also.

Lots of guys that have it all ready, brought their own gear with them, but you could also turn up with nothing, learn a bit, and find out if you have the patience for it, and go away with a better understanding of what to buy to built up your own collection.

Originally Posted by eskimo

Is that the solid shank type or hollow type

The one I got was the hollow / tube one, 20 inch. Some one here had the solid type, I didn’t find the minutes to try that. A bloke could have a go at making the tubular one, 20mm seamless conduit or thin walled DOM hydraulic tube would be a good place to start. This one probably started life as 7/8” tube of some kind. An English wheel would probably do a good job of it.

Regards Phil.

P.S. I’ve also got a date in mind. Sat 10th & Sun 11th March 2012. Its the weekend before the Grand Prix. Moomba is on, but that wouldn’t bother us, Monday the 12th is labour day Public Holiday, in Victoria only.

Originally Posted by Machtool

Food was a bit more than nibbles...

Phil's hamburgers, kransky's, croissants, not to mention Greg's rocket fuel coffee...

The food was probably worth the course fee...

You could turn up with nothing, and end up with a flat, square, precision scraped, cast iron block, a bottle of canode blue and memories of a great weekend.

Away from the course, you need a miniumum of a surface plate, some blue and a scraper, maybe a few basic measuring bits and pieces.

But, the most valuable thing from the course is the knowledge of how to blue, and scrape, as the ad says... "priceless"...

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by Machtool

P.S. I’ve also got a date in mind. Sat 10th & Sun 11th March 2012. Its the weekend before the Grand Prix. Moomba is on, but that wouldn’t bother us, Monday the 12th is labour day Public Holiday, in Victoria only

I'd love to go to something like this but I'll probably have to wait till I retire in a few years time.

Originally Posted by Machtool

G’day Simon.

If you have time, you could read the thread were all the planning took place. That would answer a lot of questions.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/scraping-class-melbourne-138060/

In short, the $300 provided everything we would need for the weekend. It was designed so you could get off a plane, catch a Taxi to here, and not want for a thing all weekend. There’s enough gear here to turn up with nothing, and get straight into it. And included things like Canode to take home and keep practicing.

You want to look at it like $350. The cast iron blocks would be mandatory. They worked so well, in that they are easy to hold, and everyone is working on the same thing.

Food was a bit more than nibbles, several guys turned up in Taxi’s or lifts in from the bride. No one had to leave the premises during work hours.

Those blocks will be more like $60 next time. The raw material ended up being $42.48 each.

Then there was some extra’s. Joe made up some home made scrapers to sell, I found some cheap Sandviks, there were Aussie made Carbide bits, and there was a bit of buy swap and sell over the weekend also.

Lots of guys that have it all ready, brought their own gear with them, but you could also turn up with nothing, learn a bit, and find out if you have the patience for it, and go away with a better understanding of what to buy to built up your own collection.


The one I got was the hollow / tube one, 20 inch. Some one here had the solid type, I didn’t find the minutes to try that. A bloke could have a go at making the tubular one, 20mm seamless conduit or thin walled DOM hydraulic tube would be a good place to start. This one probably started life as 7/8” tube of some kind. An English wheel would probably do a good job of it.

Regards Phil.

P.S. I’ve also got a date in mind. Sat 10th & Sun 11th March 2012. Its the weekend before the Grand Prix. Moomba is on, but that wouldn’t bother us, Monday the 12th is labour day Public Holiday, in Victoria only.

Thanks Phil,

I was aware of that thread it's just that after 12 pages I was hoping for a sweetened condensed version

I was not questioning where the money went (Hope you didn't think that anyway) as I already know by the feedback it was money well spent. More about whether it was realistic for me to consider doing the course knowing what tools & equipment I have.

Thanks,

Simon

The thing about tools as I see it is that the hardest thing to find are camel back or bridge type spotting masters. It seems to me that the best combination of those for actual machine tool rebuilding would be a bridge type just longer than your longest slideway, about 50mm wide or so, and an angled camel back just longer than your longest dovetail way.

The granite plates are available here for not too much money, scrapers can be made.

The next level of gear can be bought slowly on ebay...a master precision level, a quality indicator stand with a 2µm indicator, a small surface gauge, feeler gauges, some kind of square reference (a cast iron angle plate which you get to scrape to whatever accuracy you want. You'll need three, then sell two when you're done)

So the straightedges/spotting masters are the stumbling block. Granite ones can be found, even bought locally. It might be possible to do another group buy of 90cm camel back castings from the US, but frankly I'd rather have a granite. The money is pretty close, and given how much my casting moved after milling I reckon it should be stress-relieved which will add $$ to the project. All up with shipping and milling it was around $280 so far.

A dovetail spotting tool can also be made from a bar of cast iron. Mill it to just less than the dovetail angle, scrape two of three edges, add handles at the ends.

I'm going to investigate the best prices possible on granite and report back.

As it is I am waiting for a break from work and I'll import three or four large granite plates via a car importer. I should be able to land them for less than $450 each, maybe even less. I was going to do that a couple of months ago but other priorities intervened.

Greg

Wow. Even Shars wants $300 for a 600mm granite straightedge. That's a lot more than I was expecting. (It's less for a 600 X 900 plate. I wonder if you could buy a plate and saw 18 straightedges out of it?)

Originally Posted by Greg Q

I wonder if you could buy a plate and saw 18 straightedges out of it?)

Hi Greg,

lol I'd been thinking exactly that. They do tell us granite doesnt move, but that might be taking it a little far.

Do the granite straight edges have more than one flat face?

Stuart

If you look at Shars they list them as "straightedge" or "parallel two sides" or "four sides", so I guess its just one side, like a camelback. I read somewhere once that granite has had many million years of stress relief, that's why it doesn't move around.

Time to fire up the concrete saw I reckon Stuart

Greg

I have sorted out the instructional Turcite video...

How do the scraping participants want it distributed? Along with the other video on levelling...

I was thinking up uploading it to somewhere and just providing a link to the participants who can then download it... That is probably the easiest solution rather then bugger around with DVD's and postage..... I expect the size to be in the order of 1GB+ per video...

Originally Posted by .RC.

I have sorted out the instructional Turcite video...

How do the scraping participants want it distributed? Along with the other video on levelling...

I was thinking up uploading it to somewhere and just providing a link to the participants who can then download it... That is probably the easiest solution rather then bugger around with DVD's and postage..... I expect the size to be in the order of 1GB+ per video...

The link works for me Richard. But I'm not fussed either way.

Greg

There has been one very negative outcome from the scraping class for me....

If has given me a major appreciation for quality accurate measuring devices.... So much that I have done some serious googling for ones for sale all over the world...

Originally Posted by Greg Q

The link works for me Richard. But I'm not fussed either way.

+1
Thanks for your effort RC

Greg,
I have a piece of granite here, I might just see how hard it is to cut. Cant imagine cutting 600mmx100mm. I was thinking about 300mmx50mm(still maybe at that size its not worth the effort?

Stuart

p.s. although how much use would a 300mm straight edge be?