A couple questions about making scraper shaves

[Bob Stroupe]

How thick should the blade/scraper be?
Does the size of the throat mater at all, aside from being wide enough not to choke up?
Thanks.

[Roy Griggs]

First let me say, I've never made a scraper shave. I have made blades for scrapers (#80, #81, etc.), and use regular handsaw material which is usually around .035" +/_. I have also used material from larger two man crosscut saws which I think runs in the .045" to .055" range. The difference is in the ability to bow the blade as you use it. As far as mouth opening...other than too tight, I don't think it matters very much; none of my factory made scrapers seem to have very tight mouths.
YMMV.

[john brenton]

If you're planning on making the ram's horn style there are some nice examples online...and I'd like to find out how you do on it as I'd like to make one as well.

[Bob Stroupe]

@ Roy Griggs
Thanks. I've got probably a dozen worn out sawzall blades that are about .030-.040" that I was thinking about using.

@ john brenton
I'm thinking about making something smaller than the horn shaped, #80 sized scrapers I've seen. I'm thinking more like a flat bottomed chairmaker's devil. I'll post a picture and tell ya how well I think it turned out when I get it together.

[Jim Belair]

I made one that works pretty well a while back and used a Hock blade at 0.060. It looks like the Veritas chair devils use a 0.040 blade. The mouth on mine is 0.015 but as someone mentioned this isn't too critical. A chair devil leaves a great surface finish!

Jim B

[Bob Stroupe]

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/5406994504_41a6daff89.jpg

Well here it is. I just nocked it together tonight in my unheated garage workshop. I realize it's very crude compared to the quality of work I usually see posted around here. Normally when I make something like this I wouldn't post it on line... I've never actually seen one of these in real life, I wasn't sure if I would actually have a use for it and I didn't want to spend too much time or waste fancy wood on a tool I might not ever use. And hell I'm just not that talented anyway :D The plywood made it real easy to pop out a couple layers and replace it with a 1/4" scrap of red oak. If I use it enough to wear it out I'll make a nicer one.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5406995250_9632177cf3_z.jpg
It seems to work pretty good, I'm happy with it. It's a more aggressive tool than I expected it to be. It's almost more like my spokeshave set for a fine cut except I can also get a much better finish if I get the depth of blade and burr set just right which took some fiddling until I figured it out. I added the screw used to flex the blade because the old set of plans I based this off of had one. It doesn't seem to have much if any effect besides making it more likely for shavings to jam in the mouth. This makes since now that I think about it, on a #80 with the blade set at a forward angle bowing the blade would make it stick out of the bottom further and cut deeper. I was hoping this tool would reduce how much sanding I usually end up doing after using my spokeshave. I'll have to mess around with it some more before I use it on a project, but so far it looks like it does what I want.