Finishing stock with wood scraper only

[flashpanner]

Does anyone finish off the stock by scraping only? If you do, ever run into trouble scraping up close and personal to the relief carving? Do you see much difference in the quality of the cut if going cross grain or doing a shear cut? I am planning on doing this method on my stock being that abrasive paper may have not been available in the 1780's-1790's.

 

[Stophel]

I scrape my stocks. I don't do the hook edge thing like you are "supposed" to do. I just file an edge on the scraper and that's it. When it gets dull, I simply strike the file across it a few times and it's good to go again. I can, if the grain allows, scrape backwards and forwards. I can drag the edge along or turn it around and push it up into a corner. If you're careful, you can actually scrape a stock pretty finely.

No problems around carving. A clean chisel cut in the carving background doesn't need much, if any scraping, but small areas like this can be done with the chisel edge if they are inaccessible to the normal scraper.

Angle the scraper so that you are not following the curl and get a washboard surface. Change the angle as you scrape too. You do have to be ever wary of the grain direction when scraping, as with the use of any edge tool. Good quality hard sugar maple will usually scrape well enough in either direction, but will always favor one way over the other (going "downhill" on the grain). Some soft wood won't scrape well at all, but these need to be avoided anyway.

 

[kettenburg]

You shouldn;t have a problem scraping around the carving because the whole stock should be scraped down first, before any carving is executed. The longer you can work out your scraping strokes (calm down, calm down :rotf: ) the better the stock will look when finished as there will be less scraper 'stops' or small markings where the scraper either touched down or took off. I have used every type of scaper imaginable and still use a combination of edge types depending upon what happens to be sharp and how lazy I feel! The hook-edge scrapers will yield the finest cutting by far but are also the most time consuming to maintain. For this reason most gunmakers fall back to chisel edge scapers fairly often, either proper scrapers or the chisel edges themselves. IT is usually the edges of small 1/8" through 1/4" flat chisels that are used around the relief carving if the background is scraped at all (many originals were very carved w/ no scraping for clean up).

 

[CrackStock]

Eric,

Welcome to the Forums! It is good to see you here.

CS

 

[magnus wiberg]

I do scrape my gunstocks, and have done so for a long time.Just as you say, sand or emerypaper wasn´t around way back.
Sometimes I use a steelscraper, and sometimes I use a piece of broken glass ( I use the same method when removing paint and wood from the spokes of my Model T wheels)
What I´ve also used for many years is a piece of bone to then polish the wood ,after having applied linseed oil or wax. This will even the surface of the wood and press down the fibres.
That was amethod used in the olden days, as I´ve found in the archives
Magnus in Sweden

 

[flashpanner]

Thanks gentleman for your replies. I am going to try and avoid the true grit stuff. Sounds like this scraping thing will yield a cleaner, crisper grain a new skill to be learned and mastered. I will post pictures as the project gets going.

 

[Stophel]

What I have taken to recently is this method: After scraping the stock to satisfaction, I stain with A.F. If there are going to be any "whiskers" this is when they will show up (why waste a step wetting wood with just water, when you could be staining?). I also stain now because I have a hard time seeing the surface of the wood when it is still white. With it stained, I can more easily see lumps, bumps, and scratches and remove them.

If the surface seems fine with no flaws, then, with the surface "whiskered", I will scrape the stock again VERY LIGHTLY, with the scraper laying almost flat on the stock. This just shaves off the hairs. Then, stain again and when finished, wash down with mild lye solution and then rinse it off well.

Scraping produces a smooth, but "textured" finish. Hard to describe. If I burnish at all, it is after the grain is filled (burnishing, by nature, mashes down the grain, and keeps your grain filler from soaking in). I use a piece of antler tip polished smooth. I don't use it much, but it is a handy thing to have. It can even be used to clean up some of the edges of your relief carving.