Thread: Cabinet (aka card) scrapers in woodturning

I'd often used cabinet scrapers on a stationary piece of work when I had a small blemish I wanted to remove carefully before sanding.

But a few months ago we had a demonstration at our club by Mark Hancock who showed how to use them in a trailing mode on turning work for a fine finish - and after trying it I was amazed how easy it was to do and get a good finish.

Give it a go.

I did try them out a few times. Thing is there isn't anything that I can do with one of them (at least while the wood is spinning) that I can't do with a standard bowl scraper, and the bowl scrapers have nice long handles on them.

robo hippy

i use them on stationary bowls - Lathe turned off at power point, spindle lock engaged. Tiding up a the one #$%^^$#$ blemish, instead of the usual 1 more cut and stuff the entire bowl up.

They are especially useful in cleaning up the bottom of the bowl after turning of the tenon using cole jaws or similar with speed restrictions, when you dont want to spend years with the rotary sander

You can of course get curved cabinet scrapers for a bowl inside.

Lee in the sharpening Bible says cabinet scrapers are not good on soft woods. The cutting angle is too great.

That's consistent with what I learned from Len Smith about turning scrapers.

And NeilS's tests with turning scrapers showed that taking the burr off and polishing the face appears to work best, localised blemishes aside.