Patrick Bernardo
10-17-2013, 6:21 PM
Hey all,
I'm still a beginner with hand tools and have been slowly building my skills. Due to a series of events, a small student-model workbench fell into my lap. So instead of working on the cabinet I had going, I'm trying to rehab the bench instead. Anyway, I've taken the opportunity to try to master the cabinet scraper. I've watched videos, read instructions, but, perhaps ironically, the directions that helped me the most were on Hock's simple page or two in his sharpening book. After following his method, the scraper finally 'clicked' into place on the wood, and I got the infamous 'wispy shavings.' I was amazed at how good the scraper felt, but also how much quicker it was at taking off the old nastiness from the top of the bench with a proper hook. It felt awesome, by the way, and made me realize that, while I'm still a rank amateur, each little victory in the hand tool world is both totally worth it, and actually easier than I think once I focus on doing things right. While I scraped unproductively for a couple of hours spread over a couple of days, once I focused on getting the hook right, I was able to do it in something like 20 minutes of trial and error.
So here's my question: the hook on my scraper seems to last for, maybe, at most 10 swipes or so. After that, I'm back to dust, and have to burnish again. I find that I can just re-burnish the tool maybe 2 or 3 times before I have to go through the whole jointing and stoning process again. Is this normal? Since I'm working totally by hand (Hock burnisher on Hock blade), I'm not certain of the exact angle, but I would wager I'm closer to 15 degrees than 5 degrees. Still, the hook engages at a seemingly low angle of attack - something that I thought was associated with higher hook angles. I know that none of you can see what I'm doing, but I'm trying to get a sense here of what's going on. Are the hooks on a scraper that fragile? Is about 10 swipes or so par for the course? Or is that a sign that I need to adjust something?
pdb.
I'm still a beginner with hand tools and have been slowly building my skills. Due to a series of events, a small student-model workbench fell into my lap. So instead of working on the cabinet I had going, I'm trying to rehab the bench instead. Anyway, I've taken the opportunity to try to master the cabinet scraper. I've watched videos, read instructions, but, perhaps ironically, the directions that helped me the most were on Hock's simple page or two in his sharpening book. After following his method, the scraper finally 'clicked' into place on the wood, and I got the infamous 'wispy shavings.' I was amazed at how good the scraper felt, but also how much quicker it was at taking off the old nastiness from the top of the bench with a proper hook. It felt awesome, by the way, and made me realize that, while I'm still a rank amateur, each little victory in the hand tool world is both totally worth it, and actually easier than I think once I focus on doing things right. While I scraped unproductively for a couple of hours spread over a couple of days, once I focused on getting the hook right, I was able to do it in something like 20 minutes of trial and error.
So here's my question: the hook on my scraper seems to last for, maybe, at most 10 swipes or so. After that, I'm back to dust, and have to burnish again. I find that I can just re-burnish the tool maybe 2 or 3 times before I have to go through the whole jointing and stoning process again. Is this normal? Since I'm working totally by hand (Hock burnisher on Hock blade), I'm not certain of the exact angle, but I would wager I'm closer to 15 degrees than 5 degrees. Still, the hook engages at a seemingly low angle of attack - something that I thought was associated with higher hook angles. I know that none of you can see what I'm doing, but I'm trying to get a sense here of what's going on. Are the hooks on a scraper that fragile? Is about 10 swipes or so par for the course? Or is that a sign that I need to adjust something?
pdb.