How to Sharpen a Paint Scraper

Dave, you've got a couple of different scrapers laying here and these are not scrapers that most woodworkers are familiar with when we talk about cabinet scrapers and card scrapers. So what's the dealio. What do you got going here? Well, cabinet scraper is, you know fairly familiar woodworking tool. It's used to make, you know shave down the wood, especially on figured wood. You don't get tear out like you would with a plane. This is what was used in the day before sandpaper, but people still use it to this day. Was there a day before sandpaper? There was, that's a long time ago. And over the years, what I've found, and this goes, and you can see, I've been using this for a long time. Got some miles on that one. Yeah, it was just a good old paint scraper. It's real easy to put that burr edge on there that is a little harder to do on a card scraper just using a bench grinder. And you can get some real nice curls off of it. So the problem with that particular tool as we've looked around Yeah. And it's become progressively harder to find. Yes. So went to a home center and you found that. Right. And this works. And we're pretty close. Yep. And the way I sharpen it is a little unusual. Well, you're kind of unusual, so it works out. It, it, it all goes together. Good. Yes. But I'll just show you. And sometimes you're abrasive. All right, anyway, back to the woodworking part of this. Hold it at a, a little bit of a strange angle. It doesn't, you don't need a tool rest. There's very little pressure or contact. You want to have a very light touch. I try to put a wee bit of a crown on there, just so I don't have these sharp points that are going to dig into the wood. And you hold it, you know, roughly at about a, you know, a 30-degree angle off of there. And that'll pull the burr. And you can experiment around with, you know, different angles until you get it. But it's very easy to do. And we're on it. We're running a slow speed grinder. Yep. And Dave was on the finer of the two wheels because we do, we want to kick up a burr, but a coarse wheel on a high-speed grinder would be too much. That edge would go away in a heartbeat. Now, in the absence of a grinder if somebody was using a wet stone on the bevel side. Or a file would work. Okay. All right, let's see how you did. But the grinder just makes it so quick and easy. So again, you're getting those nice curls and you can use this to scrape glue. Like if you've glued a hardwood edge onto a, as we have here, onto a shelf. A piece of plywood with some hardwood edging on here. And it'll take the glue right off, but then you can go on from there and take this wood down. To level. Flush to the plywood, yep. You try to do that with a plane, that can be a little bit tricky. I mean, you can do that, but that's a little bit tricky. And if you're sanding, that's a lot of sanding to do. And easy to get uneven. Yeah, you run the risk of going through your veneer. Well, one of the things I like about this is that you've really got some leverage, there. Yep. It's, it's you can get a lot of torque on that thing and really pull it through. Well, that's a great tip in sharpening the tip, and like I said, those paint scrapers are available at any home center. Yep. The metal component itself is easily replaceable. So it's a good tip. The whole key is in getting the burr on there. Getting the burr on there. You want to, you're shooting for, you know a nice curl like this when you're going across the wood. And if they're getting the indication, it isn't working as they're getting what? It tends to be a little more powdery Yeah, or just doesn't cut at all. Right. Very good. Thanks Dave. You're welcome.