Reply To: Card scraper finish

Thanks everybody for suggestions!

I tried some alteration to my edge turning today, but still get these whiskers on the piece of birch that planes just fine. These are almost a millimeter long, become very visible when I drag finger across grain. Without these surface would be glorious, it already reflects light. Scraping fast-growth-pine tears it, largish chunks. I suppose that means the edge is simply not sharp but probably a bit rounded-over. Shavings are shaving-like, not dust; sometimes quite thick.

The fixes I tried today was doing the milling by keeping the file & stone in the vise. Also tried using sandpaper as final flattening stage (only had mirka up to 800, forgot to use an oilstone I actually have). Tried doing initial consolidation for many strokes (20+?). Tried turning the edge only to horizontal level (until fingernail does not catch from wrong direction).

I suspect that diamond plates that have had only relatively little action have donated some of the initial extra diamonds into the scraper. Now scraper being relatively hard metal has them embedded here and there and is maybe also scratching the burnisher. It might be that because the pressure on plate is so easily much greater with scraper the donation happens more easily. If this is so then refiling and using only sand/stone would help me achieve actually sharp pointy end 🙂  Now if only the burnisher would polish back up with the autoglym chrome polisher 🙂

I will continue exercises, there must be a solution.