Scraper Plane or Hand held Scraper Blades... ? which do you prefer?

I have a Stanley #80 scraper and a card scraper. I use the card scraper about 3 to 1 over the 80.

-- Maplewood, MN

Glad to hear things are going well in your quest for better projects. My thoughts on the tools you reference are these…

Any blade that is held in a body is meant for more aggressive stock removal. I like the Stanley 80 and equivalents for a transition from planing to finishing.

Nothing beats a well tuned card scraper for final smoothing, as well as removing nubs after grain raising.

Fine woodworking did a test, and found that there is no difference in the look of a finish when the wood was prepared by planing/scraping or sanding. Use both methods as you see fit for the task at hand.

Patrick,
I was in the same boat awhile back as you are in now. I asked the same questions and did some research. I ended up buying the LN Large Scraper Plane. Wow, what a great plane. It was polished, well fitted, and easy to adjust. The only problem, I couldn’t get the darn thing to work properly. So off to Ebay it went. I use the hand scrapers now and they work quite nice for me. By the way, I have 15 planes that I use on a regular basis, I just couln’t get the hang of the scraper plane.

If I were going to buy a scraper plane again and give it a go, I would definately buy the Veritas Scraper Plane. On the Veritas, you are able to “bow” the blade making it easier to use. Thats just my 2 cents.

-- Jeff, Indiana

I would also go with the hand scrapers, you can reach so many more areas than you can with a plane or 80. I do have the Veritas scraper plane which is a very well made functional plane, but it is heavy. A simple scraper in your shirt pocket is impossible to beat, saves sand paper and saves time.

-- If knowledge is not shared, it is forgotten.

Hand scrapers are nice in that they can do more than just flat surfaces. You can get a goose neck
scraper for curved surfaces. You can also get a lot more control over just where you want to scrape.
Plus they are cheap.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Scraper planes and card scrapers do different things.

I love using a freshly honed card scraper for those small, difficult-to-reach or just tiny areas. The ability of such a simple tool to produce such amazing results is a constant wonder.

There is a danger in the indescriminate use of a card scraper, however. When pushed, the steel bends and this camber can/does plane grooves into the surface. This may only become apparent when the finish is applied. On the other hand, this camber can be useful for digging out deep tearout. For these reasons it is helpful to learn to pull the card scraper as well as push it. I even hone up the short ends of the cards as these are stiffer.

A scraper plane (I have a Stanley #112 with LN blade) is preferred when one has large areas of interlinked wood to smooth, and the smoother just not hack it. I have some amazing smoothers that can plane just about anything, but not even these can plane everything! A well set up scraper plane is capable of smoother-like performance that cannot be matched by a card scraper.

Horses for courses.

Regards from Perth

Derek

-- Building and Reviewing Tools at http://www.inthewoodshop.com

I have yet to try a Scraper plane. But I do use my card scrape a fair bit; i just wish it did not lead to burned thumbs…. Boy does it get hot!

-- Chris

I have card scrapers, a #80 and a cheap 112 clone. I use them all for different things. I also sand with a random orbit and finish by hand. If you finish with a film finish you can’t tell the difference.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Wow Thank you all so very much.. I’m so happy with the great info … Looks like I’ll be trying both, blade and plane scraping.. Derek those pictures of your 112 in action are GREAT ! Thank you they give me hope and inspiration with my quest for a fine finish…

-- PJM.`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º> why's there a light in fridge and not the freezer? , aka, the wood hunter.aka tigermaple5

I too use both the 80 and card scrapers. One thing that I did on the 80 was I put a 45 on one side of the blade. I use that side when I need to get agressive on something, like a rough area on figured Maple. I can quickly remove rough saw marks down and then flip the blade smooth it then pick up a card scraper to finish. It works very well for me.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV