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Setting Up A Scraper Plane

From Walke Moore Tools:

If you’re new to scraper planes or scrapers in general, you may want to read this first.

My Lie-Nielsen #112 scraper plane has become indispensable to me since I purchased it about a year ago. Whether I’m dealing with exotic woods, interlocking grain, or just smoothing a knot with the usual grain reversal surrounding it the scraper plane does it all and I would not be without one at this point. But maintaining a scraper plane can be tricky and unlike hand planes, there isn’t a lot of information out there on how to set them up. Hopefully this will help (so please tell your woodworking nerd friends).

A Quick Carving with My Newly Sharpened Chisels

These are tough to photograph. MKG under shellac on Doug fir.

Sharpening my Curve Carving Gouges

My previous post described how I sharpen my flat (letter) carving gouges. Mostly this post is about “commissioning” (sharpening them for the first time) or if I need to repair an edge.

I’ve had to do a fair amount of work to the curved gouges I inherited. You could, as I have, change the bevel on a carving chisel with the approach I use below. I learned this approach from my friend Anada (a_dorje on Instagram).

I use my 8″ Tormek 3 (now Tormek 4). Ideally you’d want to use something that doesn’t create a hollow bevel (something like the Work Sharp System) .. but! .. once I have the new angle on the chisel set and polished, I usually just use the strop to keep the chisels sharp.

So to commission a new chisel or reshape a bevel, I take the chisel to the wheel, then 1000, 4000 and 8000 grit stones. Then I strop.

So here goes:

Setting the gouge for 25 degrees.

I often us black permenant marker to see where the grind on the bevel is

The new bevel, right off the Tormek with a hollow grind.

Then I work the new bevel on my Shapton water stones.

You can see that 90% of the hollow grind has been removed.

Then I hone the inside edge to remove the burr created by the Tormek and the stones.

Then again with a finer Arkansas translucent.

You can see the 1/16″ front edge of the gouge effected by the stones.

Then I strop the outside of the bevel on the Tormek.

And then the inside.

Last I take the gouge to the flat and shaped strop to work the final burr back and forth until it falls off.

The final test.

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Letter Carving and letter carving tools sharpening

I’ve been practicing my letter and relief carving and attempting to improve my skills. A few folks have asked me to explain how I sharpen my chisels.

Here is how I sharpen my flat bevel letter carving chisels.

I’ve been practicing my relief carving.

First I put the flat double bevel chisel in my Lee Valley sharpening jig at 15 degrees. I also mark the bevel with black permanent marker.

I hone the chisel on 100 grit sand paper.

The black permanate marker tells me that I’m on the mark.

Once the bevel reaches all the way to the edge, I check to see if the I’ve effected the edge.

I check for the burr on the back side.

Then I take the chisel to the 1000 stones.

I polish the bevel on the 1000, 4000 and 8000 grit stones.

Here’s how my bevel looks at this point. Then I repeat the process on the other side.

Then I carve.

Chisel roll was made by Jason Thigpen at Texas Heritage Woodworks. Letter carving chisel is Auriou.

Relief Carving Class

Last week I go the opportunity to take a relief carving class at Heritage School of Woodworking. Class information here.

This was my first opportunity to put my E. Sarjeant tools to work and it was great fun. Slowly but surely, I’m getting those chisels back in working order and back to work.

Here are a couple of the carvings I did. All carvings were done in basswood.