Hone New Card Scrapers?

[Steve H Graham]

I got a set of Garlick scrapers today. Does anyone know if these things need to be honed when they're new? My guess is that they do, since I have not been able to generate anything but dust.

[Prashun Patel]

Yes. I have the same ones. You can get them to shave a little, but they won't perform as well as when properly honed.

[Stephen Pereira]

I can't speak for Garlick brand handscrapers but a hand scraper just like a plane iron or chisel does its best work when both surfaces are polished.

I had a terrible time getting a card scraper to produce shavings rather than sawdust. I finally figured out that I was burnishing incorrectly.

An accidental discovery..last evening I was trying to scrape a piece of walnut. I was having limited sucess so I "consolidated" the edge by burnishing the flat of the scraper and then proceeded to raise the burr. In the meanwhile I rubbed some mineral spirits on the wood so I could see any imperfections..I then proceeded to scape while the wood was slightly damp..WOW..beautifull, thin, wispy shavings and a nice surface finish. I'm going to play around with this some more..try water to raise the grain. Anyone else try this?

[Steve H Graham]

Looks like I have more work to do.

[Prashun Patel]

Raising a burr is the key to producing shavings. honing/polishing the edge is required to produce a scratchless surface. However, if you want to use yr scraper (as do I) to do some rough smoothing/leveling, and are prepared to use a well honed plane or finer grits of sandpaper after, then you can really go straight from the mill file to the burnisher.

I also have had some luck scraping a wet surface. I don't know why it works.

[John Coloccia]

Raising a burr is the key to producing shavings.

This, right here. Raise the burr first. Then reestablish a proper scraping burr. You should be able to get a scraper working with nothing but a burnishing tool and a file...and you only need the file when the edge gets beyond the point when you can no longer turn a good burr. If you don't raise the burr first (which is fancy talk for flatten the edge on the scraper), continued efforts to turn the burr will only lead to a burr which is far too turned to be of any use. Raising the burr is the process of making the edges flat so that when you turn the burr the burr will be at a reasonable cutting angle. I hit the file when I've raised the burr yet I can no longer turn a burr.

That's just my opinion. I hope that helps. It helps to envision in your mind the shape of the final edge you're trying to establish.