Scraper Question

Does anyone know if anybody makes a 2” wide scraper? It can be conventional or negative rake.

 

Why do you need one that wide? Curious. Never seen one but I suppose you could buy a piece of HSS and make one.

 

John I turn a lot of very wide platters and I’m looking for something to help smooth out small ridges and such.

 

Have you tried a cabinet scraper?

 

I just bought a straight spear point negative rake from D-way. I'd have to go and measure, but the straight edges are each over an inch, and maybe 1 1/2". I got the tool to smooth the ridges from a long flat surface. The tool works moderately well for that purpose, but it turned out that using an NRS with a long curve on one side was better. I held the curved tool firmly braced on the tool rest with a long drawing motion smoothed and flattened the surface. Using the long straight edge worked best when there were more prominent ridges which meant smaller points of contact. As the surface got flatter more of the straight tool was in contact with the wood and cutting became more difficult. That was my experience anyway.

 

You can shape a French curve scraper to have a 2” diagonal on its edge. But I usually never put that much edge Against the wood at one time.

 

Sorby sells a 1 1/2". I have one with a shallow curve on the end. Works great.

 

I am cheap i bought a wide piece of HSS off ebay and ground my own. I did a straight NRS on one side and wide curve on the other side. I use it unhandled the curve works great for inside large bowls if i get a little sloppy with the gouge.

 

Doug Thompson makes large scrapers. The second biggest is 1 3/8", and then there is the Monster Scraper, of size unspecified in the product listing. They're not cheap, but with V10 steel, they should last a very, very long time.

 

I found a really large one made by Henry Taylor. Not sure where I got it. Maybe Packard. The trick to getting flat bottoms on platters is to control the cut with your fingers against the tool rest. Set it up parallel to the bottom and use an underhand grip and glide our fingers along the tool rest while pinching the tool with your thumb. I often do this with a 1" flat scraper that has the slightest radius. I use it as a shear scraper held at 45 degrees and just pull it across the bottom.

 

Just use your large skew with the handle at an angle.
I bought a piece of O-1 steel that was 1.5" wide. Ground a very slight curve to it. Ground it into a negative rake shape also. Then, heated it up with my torch and put it in oil to cool.
Could not heat the whole piece of steel hot enough, but got the upper 2-3" cherry red hot. Tempered in the kitchen oven. Works nicely on large flats.

 

Seems odd and backwards from what one would first think but if I'm trying to make a flat surface I grab my really big heavy curved NR scraper, line up the tool rest and hold the tool firm. Easy to keep it steady and pull across the surface. If I try with a wider flat scraper I have trouble keeping it straight and the slightest wiggle causes a dig on the corner. If I'm working the outside of a bowl then the wider straight scraper is great. No corner digs and lots of tool edge to work with on a small touch point on the bowl. Thought about rounding just the corners of my flat scrapers but I keep them sharp and crisp to clean up tenons and the foot area of bowls.

 

I've got a large (and wide) two-sided negative rake scraper that I created from a thick traditional scraper. It is one of my favorite tools. The lower angle is set to be the same as my roughing gouge, so I always have the grinding platform set up to give it a brief touchup grind on the CBN wheel. It works like a champ. Here's a picture of my two-sided scraper.

 

Brian, I like that one. I think I have a piece of HSS steel here left over from another tool. Might become my project for today. Looks to be about 6" long?

 

I bought an 1.5" square nose scraper off of fleabay several yrs. ago. I has a Craft Supplies lable on the blade and handle looks the other Henry Taylor handles that Ihave

 

Randy, Yes it's about 6 inches to the handle fitting. I used a 1/2 inch thick scraper to minimize chatter. It took a fair amount of grinding on my old high speed grinder to get the approximate shape. The finish grinding was done on my larger slow speed grinder.

 

When I've shaped tools from blank steel I know it's a lot of slow work. I get concerned about the heat buildup and dip the piece into water often but still wonder if I'm getting it too hot. I've used my 4" grinder and a cutoff wheel before to do the basic shape then finished on the bench grinder but still worry about heat buildup. I have a plasma cutter but again, heat for sure.

 

Randy If you don't see a color change in the steel don't worry about it. Just quench often. Carbon steel has to get blue before you have changed the temper of the steel. Even then you can go back and re harden and re temper it. It is of course better to just not let it get that hot. Of course if it's HSS then you can't damage it by overheating with a grinder so don't worry about that stuff at all. Still it's better just to not let it get that hot. I've read many times that if you get HSS hot and quench it you can damage the steel. I can't tell you how many tools I had made over the years and quenched a lot and as far as I can tell there wasn't any damage. That was before I read that you could damage it. So I don't worry about it. One trick to keep from overheating the steel is to crown your grinding stone. Don Geiger sells a great tools rest and wheel truing jig that will crown the stone repeatably. It is amazing how much this keeps a tool from overheating because you are only heating up a small area of the steel. The flat woodworking people have known about sharpening on crowned wheels for a long time but it's fairly new to the turning community. https://www.geigerssolutions.com/Wheel-Truing-and-Dressing.html

 

Well, do check out my video 'Scary Scrapers'. I have no use for scrapers wider than 1 inch. I consider anything more to be a waste. Part of that is because I use scrapers as my main tool for heavy bowl roughing. The other part is because the extra weight and width is not necessary. I consider the profile to be far more important than size. My preference for a 1 inch wide scraper is to have about 1/2 inch of the nose going pretty much straight across, and then the rest of it to have about a 1/2 inch radius curve/swept back profile. Having that straight edge is great for sweeping across the bottom of a platter or bowl. The straight edge is also excellent for truing up the outside of a bowl blank with a straight down the edge plunge cut. The curve is great for the transition and going up the side. If I am going up the sides, I almost never use a scraper or NRS because I generally get a better cut with a shear scrape.

robo hippy