Cabinet Scraper Burnisher - Which of the three?

[ED65]

BTW while looking for the second of these again I discovered just how many vids on this subject there are up on YouTube. Easily over 50 :shock: I bet they're all at least slightly different, no wonder people get confused about how to do this!

For anyone new to scrapers, and those having difficulty in getting consistent results, I would find one that clicks with you and follow it to the letter instead of trying to mix and match.

 

[Racers]

I have a two cherries burnisher and one made from a small tungsten drill bit, I prefer the drill bit one it seems to work better than the fatter one.
The two cherries is now in the knife draw in the kitchen.

 

[worn thumbs]

I don't see any need for these gadgets.The back of a gouge was the traditional implement and corners of chisels or screwdriver stems work too.If you have any of these you can get the scraper sharp and put the cost of the gadget to something else.Maybe a decent single cut file for dressing the scraper after a few dozen sharpenings.....

 

[woodbloke66]

I've tried a few of these things over the decades and the Arno one with the tungsten burnisher from WH is the best IMO by several light years. Sharpening a card scraper blade is one of the easiest jobs in the 'shop but it's surprising how many people make a complete hash of it - Rob

 

[That would work]

Old round file ground off and polished has served me brilliantly.
However I am prepared to be shot down on a H&S point :roll: :lol:

 

[Inspector]

Why I did the same in the fifth post. Guess we will be in the cell together.

Pete

 

[That would work]

Your tang will snap and you will die.
But not alone :roll:

 

[fezman]

Today, I had a little bit of time before I got into the project of the day.

I decided to test the Crown rod burnisher against the Arno.

I have a set of these. https://www.axminster.co.uk/veritas-sup ... ers-476257

I picked a thin one and thick one for each type of burnisher and followed Matt Estlea's tutorial on sharpening them .

I used three strokes from each burnisher on each card scraper. I'd like to think my technique remained consistent with the Crown and the Arno.

Whilst completing the sharpening, I could easily see the burr the Arno created, less so with the Crown. Nevertheless, I completed a thin and thick CS with each of the Arno and the Crown.

The results were that the Arno produced a marginally more pronounced burr. The results of use were negligible. They both produced very fine shavings, the Arno sharpened ones a little better. What I would expect is that those sharpened by the Arno (because the burr was larger) would need less sharpening and likely to last longer before re-sharpening.

So there is a practical test from a relative newb to cabinet scraping. IMO the Arno is marginally better, but probably not 3x better than the price was.

HTH F

 

[DamoF]

I have a set of those veritas super hard scrapers and borrowed a friends £10 no-name burnisher which worked a treat.

Don't get too caught up in the game, I'd say its more about technique than product. Square edges and a few accurate strokes is all that's required, as long as the steel is reasonably good.

D

 

[ED65]

I have a set of those veritas super hard scrapers and borrowed a friends £10 no-name burnisher which worked a treat.

Don't get too caught up in the game, I'd say its more about technique than product. Square edges and a few accurate strokes is all that's required, as long as the steel is reasonably good.

Yes but only if this is the case. That no-name burnisher you mention seems to be quite decent; if it performed this well in a direct comparison with the Veritas it demonstrated that it was.

Harking back to previous posts saying that the shaft of a screwdriver will do the job. Well some can for sure, otherwise there wouldn't be posts from people saying so (and I have one myself). But as many who have tried screwdrivers unsuccessfully can attest this doesn't mean that any screwdriver is up to it, which is often the implication.

 

[fezman]

I have a set of those veritas super hard scrapers and borrowed a friends £10 no-name burnisher which worked a treat.

Don't get too caught up in the game, I'd say its more about technique than product. Square edges and a few accurate strokes is all that's required, as long as the steel is reasonably good.

D

Hi Damo,
The technique point was the purpose of my post. I used the same (my) technique and 2 different burnishers. There was a difference in the results , the arno being better IMO. Now I have no vested interest in either, other than when I wasn't getting a good result, I was put off using the scrapers. When i sharpened them better I now use them all the time. Believe me if the cheap one had done the job, i would have been well satisfied with it.

 

[DamoF]

I just find it interesting that a burnisher that cost £9 did the job on Veritas super hard scrapers. The burnisher was unmarked afterwards too. Does that mean they really used even harder steel in a cheapo burnisher? I don't quite get it, either we're getting seriously ripped off paying lots for good steel, it's a fluke and somehow a really good quality burnisher got sold cheap or...?

Confused, Glasgow.

 

[ED65]

Steel 'quality' is sort of the wrong way to think about it, although it's a convenient shorthand way of referring to the qualities of the steel in a given tool it's open to being interpreted in various ways.

The thing with carbon steel is that it's dirt cheap, and easy to reliably heat treat in any remotely professional manufacturing setting. What this means in practice is that you can make a very inexpensive tool and have it as hard as you want within reasonable limits (as high hardness tends to go with brittleness).

The burnisher was unmarked afterwards too.

Again an indicator that it is what it is. By comparison this is very much not the case with a typical screwdriver shaft and only on run-of-the-mill scrapers which are at "saw temper" – very much softer than the Veritas scrapers should be.

So anyway a quick search tells me that the Veritas scrapers are HRC 48-52 which may be 'super hard' by the standards of other scrapers, not super hard by the standard of steel in general. The burnisher only needs to be about Rockwell 55 or so to perform well (easily within the gamut of a basic carbon steel) and it could well be a tad harder than this while still not being excessively brittle.