A card scraper or cabinet scraper is a

woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first mate ...

shaping and finishing tool. It is used to manually remove small amounts of material and excels in tricky

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

areas where

hand plane A hand plane is a tool for shaping wood using muscle power to force the cutting blade over the wood surface. Some rotary power planers are motorized power tools used for the same types of larger tasks, but are unsuitable for fine-scale planing, ...

s would cause tear out. Card scrapers are most suitable for working with

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

s, and can be used instead of

sandpaper upright=1.35, Sheets of sandpaper with different grit sizes (40 (coarse), 80, 150, 240, 600 (fine)). Sandpaper and glasspaper are names used for a type of coated abrasive that consists of sheets of paper or cloth with abrasive material glued to ...

. Scraping produces a cleaner surface than sanding; it does not clog the pores of the wood with dust, and does not leave a fuzz of torn fibers.

Types

Card scrapers are available in a range of shapes and sizes, the most common being a rectangular shape approximately and with a thickness of . Another common configuration is the ''gooseneck'' scraper, which has a shape resembling a

french curve A French curve is a template usually made from metal, wood or plastic composed of many different segments of the Euler spiral (aka the clothoid curve). It is used in manual drafting and in fashion design to draw smooth curves of varying radii. ...

and is useful for scraping curved surfaces. For scraping convex shapes such as

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

fingerboard The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The s ...

s, small flexible rectangular scrapers are useful. Similarly, a card scraper can be used to manufacture complex mouldings by cutting the negative of the desired moulding into the steel, e.g. through filing or die cutting. A scratch stock is a profiled card scraper that is held in an adjustable stop. Scrapers are normally made from high carbon steel. There are many manufacturers who provide scrapers in a wide variety of styles. Many woodworkers prefer to make their own card scrapers by cutting them from old

hand saw In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and carve a wooden object. They usually operate by having a ser ...

blades. Card scrapers are sometimes used in working with ceramics, where they may substitute for the more traditional wooden rib. The scraper is also useful for trimming damp or dry clay. Such a scraper, the nearest one to the camera, is shown in the image at right.

Turning the burr

The cutting component of a card scraper is the burred edge of the scraper. The burr is a sharp hook of metal which is turned on the edge of the scraper by burnishing with a burnisher or steel rod. A file or

sharpening stone Sharpening stones, or whetstones, are used to sharpen the edges of steel tools such as knives through grinding and honing. Such stones come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and material compositions. They may be flat, for working flat edg ...

is used to

joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

the edge of the scraper before burnishing. Cabinet makers typically joint the edge square, or at a right angle to the face of the scraper, which allows a fine burr to be turned on both sides.

Luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers of ...

s often use a

bevel A bevelled edge (UK) or beveled edge (US) is an edge of a structure that is not perpendicular to the faces of the piece. The words bevel and chamfer overlap in usage; in general usage they are often interchanged, while in technical usage they ...

ed edge, which allows a more aggressive burr, but on one side only. There are a number of variations in the process of turning the burr, the choice of which is down to personal preference. However the basic concept is that the burnishing rod is held against the edge of the scraper at a slight angle and drawn along the edge a number of times until the burr is created. One variation involves holding the rod flat against the side of the scraper for the first few passes to create a burr pointing away from the edge and this is then rolled back down by drawing the rod along perpendicular to the scraper. With the burr properly turned, a scraper will produce miniature shavings resembling those from a plane. If only dust is produced, either the scraper is not sharp, or not being used correctly.

Use

In use, the card scraper is grasped by the fingers, one hand on either side, and tilted in the direction of travel. The degree of tilt controls the effective angle of the cutting edge, which is the burr. Practice is required to find the correct angle. In addition to the tilt, the user will usually flex the scraper slightly by holding it at the edges with the fingers and pressing in the centre with the thumbs. The slight flex causes the corners of the scraper to lift slightly thus preventing them from marring the workpiece. The scraper may be drawn towards the user or pushed away, although some woodworkers claim that pulling the scraper towards one can cause it to dip, resulting in an uneven surface. The main drawback of a card scraper is that the usage is a difficult skill to master. It takes a bit of practice to turn the burr correctly and then the scraper must be presented to the work in the correct fashion. Also, due to the friction created in use, the card scraper can become hot enough to burn fingers. Some woodworkers use the term "cabinet scraper" instead of "card scraper" for this tool. While this is widely accepted a separate tool also exists, called a cabinet scraper, which differs from the card scraper in that it has a beveled edge like a plane. Calling a card scraper a cabinet scraper could cause confusion between these tools. A variation of the card scraper is the scraper plane which consists of a hand plane body in which a card scraper is mounted. There are also various styles of holder which can be used for this purpose. These simplify the use of the card scraper and alleviate the problems associated with heat. Burnishing jigs and other accessories are available to assist in turning the burr, which makes the card scraper more accessible to the novice.

References

External links

Sharpening and Burnishing a Scraper
- Step by step instructions for quickly getting a hand scraper ready for use, from the Mottola Lutherie (guitarmaking) Information Website. {{Hand tools Woodworking hand tools Hand tools