a lot of times when I've been working with students I've found that they can't
seem to get the bevel on the number 80 cabinet scraper dead on the 45 degrees
that helps establish a really good turned edge for this particular scraper
so let's go ahead and take this one out and I'll show you what I did to resolve
it I made one of these this is a honing guide it's got a an angle cut in here
dead-on 45 degrees it's got a little turn button under here that locks this
in place so that when you clamp this in the vise with the piece of steel in with
the plate in it doesn't slip so I'm going to make one for you then you'll
see exactly how it's done I've got a piece of wood it's 3/4 thick 2 and 3/4
wide and I think it's a nine and a half inches long so I'm just going to eyeball
a centerline there's my centerline here and then I'm going to come either side
of that about a millimeter and a half because that's just going to Center the
saw in this cut so I'm going to be making this I'm going to put a 45 degree
bevel on here and I'm going to go down 6 inches from the end so I'm going to go
into here there and that leaves enough body of wood to resist splitting when I
actually do put the blade in and I clamp it in the vise 45 degrees on here just
as a ballpark guide this is just helping me to see where I want this to go and
then just with a handsaw and you might need to check that the hand saw kerf is
similar sized to the plate steel that's going in there but I wouldn't obsess
over it because when you put it in the vise it does take up the slack
and I've got a block of wood I've already cut this so I'm ready this I'm
going to screw on here somewhere near the end so I'm going to drill a hole to
receive the chunk of the screw here so that it comes in the middle of this
midsection and in the middle of the block that's going to turn I don't want
I want it to be less than flush on this outside edge so that when it clamps in
the vise it doesn't catch there I am through that first section switch my
blade out a bit so we're going to start the screw in here I'm going to clamp it
in the vise just to make sure nothing twists on me so this needs to twist
because I've got to open this up to allow the blade to go in here and this
is the simple bit I'm going to clamp it again because I open this up with a
screwdriver just the end of a screwdriver so I'm going to file this
out open it up slide it into position no I'm gonna have to go back
so I'm going to have to I'm going to slide this into position here it's going
to stick past this surface by about a millimeter that's all let go
like that and then turn this this locks this bottom part here and stops it from
sliding so that when we put it in the vise this stays level lock this in the
vise and it'll cinch up on the blade leave it just above the bench top about
quarter of an inch cinch it nice and tight now we're ready to file so we're
going to use this as a registration face and we just file through file from here
like this until we've got that bevel where we want it like that and then
we're going to draw file it so that was through filing that doesn't give us the
smoothness that we want doesn't give us a continuous spiral on the shaving so
now we draw file this by pushing this like this and that takes off long
spirals of steel there's one draw it up so you can see this is a long spiral
it's like a continuous shaving like we would get in wood if we countered the
plane to one side so we get the same effect with this and then we're ready to
hone this bevel so we just take a paddle now you could use abrasive paper a very
fine abrasive paper on a block of wood but I'm just using diamonds and I just
polished this now so I'm honing this to 1200 grit that's giving me the polished
edge that I want and that's basically the work of getting the bevel done so
it's nice and smooth now it will be a sharp edge now but it's got a burr on
the other side so now we're going to take this take it out of the holder and
we're going to just polish up the face the big flat face to remove the burr on
the diamond plate and then we're going to turn the edge and we'll show you how
it works so now I'm ready to just buff out polish that burr off the other side
I've got a burr on this side I can feel that you can't feel it
so I've polished this out just a little bit
because this face is already polished anyway so now I don't have the burr here
but the buries on that edge so I've got to just wipe this and the burr will be
removed when I burnish the edge so go to that now and you'll see how this
works this goes in the vise I'm going to put
it this way it's not always easy to
burnish this you either wet this on with spit from your tongue or you wipe it on
your oil here and then you press this onto the plate on that same bevel the 45
degrees so you're following the same angle and you keep buffing this edge out
the polished edge this is actually refining that edge even more than your
1200 grit will because it's consolidating itself in into itself and
then I start to lower my hand this way so I'm gonna start I'm at 45 I'm going
to lower lower lower with each stroke so here and now I'm starting to turn the
edge and I can actually see that edge turning so now I've got a burr on here
so we load this into here this is how I set my scrapers drop this in to here you
hear it click down on there squeeze this back plate and then cinch these little
nailed nuts up while you have it squeezed like this you can tighten it if
you want to usually it's not necessarily it's not necessary to go beyond finger
tight and I just push this on the surface here and it's just kissing the
surface so now I tighten this wingnut right against the back
plate and just a little extra let's see how we did let's see if we can get some
shavings now I'm shaving here this is Mesquite which is just about twice as
hard as oak not quite twice as hard as oak let's see what we get
so we are getting shaving a little bit extra on here and this is glass smooth
now this is absolutely glass smooth and that's how I would recommend that you
sharpen your number 80 scraper it'll stay with you forever now the smell of
Mesquite is wonderful