Why cabinet scrapers rule

Scraper Close UpA while back I bought a cabinet scraper, because I'd seen them used on TV, and I wanted to try it out on my bathroom vanity. The experiment succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

Cabinet scrapers are fussy to sharpen, although not quite so bad as a good hand plane. My first effort failed miserably, and I was forced to resort to the Internet to find out how to sharpen one. Fortunately there are several good woodworking video blogs, and it took me less than two minutes to find a good sharpening video (Check out The Wood Whisperer). He turned me on to the fact that I would need to hone before I could burnish the edges and put the requisite hooked bur on the edge. Honing went quickly thanks to my dad's instruction on the matter. Burnishing itself is pretty quick: a few firm passes on the side, then a couple along the face to turn the bur.

My first effort wasn't that sharp, and it raised more dust than curls, but it did take some curls, and cleaned up some bad tear out in one spot. A quick trip back to burnish the scraper again, and it was giving up beautiful curls. In fact, it cleaned everything up so nicely that I think the scraper has replaced sandpaper for me in a lot of situations. I certainly won't be using sandpaper on this vanity. By the time I had all of the joints perfectly level and my tearout cleaned up, it was only a few quick passes with the scraper to address any other irregularities.

Smooth Burl Here's an example of just how awesome a cabinet scraper can be. That particular bit of oak is the burl that forms around a branch. It's super dense and the grain goes every which way. My plane left horrible tearouts, and it was totally unpresentable. Which is a shame, because it's also a beautiful piece of wood, and I deliberately included it. The scraper was able to take the surface right down, so that it's very smooth and the tearout isn't especially visible (there are a few small divots).

As a side note, this project has made me start to appreciate how dense oak can be, and why a lot of hand-tool guys don't really like to work it that much. I'm not ready to give up my oak yet, but it does definitely give you a workout, both in the actual cutting, and in the continual sharpening that it forces on you.