What scrapers?

[Jake Helmboldt]

For those of you turning bowls and hollow forms, what are your "go to" scrapers for most work? Raffan likes his radiused scrapers and spear points, but of course they aren't widely available. Before I start modifying my square and round nose scrapers I wanted to see what others find most useful for the majority of your work. Please indicate the width you generally work with as well. Mainly I'm wondering when the bigger 1.25" and 1.5" scrapers are suitable.

Also, I've yet to buy a heavy duty bowl scraper; are they worth the expense or do you find a radius or round nose scraper to suffice for the insides of bowls?

thanks, JH

[Steve Schlumpf]

Jake - I use a large round scraper on the inside bottom of bowls. Make sure it is sharp and has a nice raised burr - then use very light cuts. Might take a few passes but can really clean things up!

This is my go-to scraper: http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LX130.html

[alex carey]

Ditto what Steve said. I turn a bowl with a gouge but end with a light touch from the same scraper Steve uses.

Alex

[Don Carter]

Another vote for the PSI scraper. I have, over time, sharpened the left side of mine down about an inch or so as well as the round nose. This thing is big and heavy. Works well and the price is right.

[Reed Gray]

I prefer a swept back (to the left, also called an inside bowl scraper) design to the round nose, though both work fine. I like 3/8 thick and 1 1/4 wide. It is my go to tool for roughing (flat on the tool rest), and great for a finish shear cut on the outside, and on the inside. A pull cut in both cases, scraper on a 45 degree angle, and VERY light cuts. Does wonders to clean up tool marks. I do have one that is swept back to the right and I use it mostly to even up the top of the bowl during roughing. A round nose will work here as well, but the swept back one is better. You can get them from Doug Thompson, though he doesn't usually have a lot of the 3/8 inch thick ones in stock.
robo hippy

[Bob Hallowell]

I have a big heavy scaper I made the a big half radius. But I find more and more I use my small half round the came with my Harbor Freight set and then just as a shear scrape. I get alot of contral that way.

Bob

[curtis rosche]

i just use a bowl gouge and sand paper. i used to use a scraper, but then i had a very nasty catch wich made a peice hit me in the face. so i stopped using them.

[Mike Peace]

Besides bowls and platters I make a lot of small stuff like ornaments and lidded boxes. I use my HF round nose scraper probably the most. It is relieved a little on the left side. I also reground my HF spear point scraper to a sharper point and use it a lot for shear scraping the outside of bowls and cutting grooves for my burning wire to ride in or marking the boundaries for sections that I texture. I have a massive round Sorby bowl scraper but don't seem to use it all that much.

[Steve Frederick]

Another vote for the PSI scraper, ground along the left side a bit. Sort of elliptical.
Curtis, you're not the only one to have that experience.:mad:
Sharp burr, light passes..

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I use the PSI bowl gouge set, 2 scrapers. But I seem to use the big one more.
Chris. Yes you aren't the only one to get a catch with a scraper. My scraper handle hit me in the faceshield though. :eek: I got you beat. LOL. Yeah, THAT was exciting.

[Tim Cleveland]

I would recomend that you get some of Mike Mahoney's DVD'sand give his methods a try before getting any scrapers. I was able to eliminate the use of scrapers altogether and actually cut my sanding time in half. His philosophy is that you will always get a cleaner cut from a gouge than a scraper and he emphasizes good tool control as a means to get a clean cut (he does recommend shear scaping with a gouge on the exterior of bowls, but not on the interiors). He uses a fingernail grind bowl gouge for the majority of the shaping and switches to a traditional grind bowl gouge for the last couple of cuts to refine the shape and leave an almost flawless finish.

Tim

[Marc Himes]

I use a 1" radius scraper and a radius cut away scraper from Hamlet tools to make the finishing cuts on the inside of most of my bowls. I try to finish the top parts before moving down leaving a fair amount of wood in the bottom as I am working in the top. That usually gives me a good surface. I try to sharpen the scraper in a nonaggressive way and angle it down a little (handle tilted up metal tilted down). I have also used Mike Mahoney's traditional grind gouge and that can work too but I still tend to get some ridges, so I lean more toward a sharp scraper with light cuts.

I have used the larger scrapers from Sorby but cn't seem to avoid bad catches so I use the smaller 1" size.

Marc Himes

[Dean Thomas]

I agree with a couple of folks who've already written here. I do a whole lot more small stuff than I do large. And I frankly don't do a lot of bowls or plates. I have done them and do like doing them, but I still end up doing smaller stuff. As a result of years of purchasing all sorts of things and sets of things, I have all sorts of scrapers. Some of them are specific purchases for specific causes.

I LOVE my heavy duty scrapers. Even for my little projects, having chunks of steel that are 3/8" or 1/2" thick means that on my little projects, I get no excessive noise and that means that I get a lot smoother results. Thicker steel means that the tool can hang over the tool rest a lot farther without wagging in the wind!

I was reading in one of David Springett's books recently about how he buys the inexpensive HSS or even carbon steel tools and reshapes them into special use tools. He had a 3/16" thick, 1/2" wide scraper that he converted into a 3/16" wide and 1/2" thick scraper! I have a couple of 1/4" thick pieces that I've decided to do that with. It puts the meat of the tool in the right dimension to provide the most stability for my purposes in small projects.

My extra hefty scrapers came from CSUSA and are Henry Taylor tools.

PS: Raffan was trained by old-school production turners. A lot of the old-schoolers used the diamond point as their go-to tool. And they used it primarily without a burr so that it could scrape or be used to turn beads like a skew. I've played a little with it because of that report (from another turner trained by old-schoolers) and can at least understand where they come from. Add to that, many turners learned from die makers who scraped nearly everything except when using a roughing gouge. That's what they tell me, anyhow. FWIW. YMMV.