eBay Stanley sweetheart Scraper

John, my apprentice and friend, bought me a scraper on eBay knowing it be once broken and welded. It’s well repaired and strong as ever but within the retaining bar only 3/4″ remains and so too scant a length for further use as you can see.

 

I found the thickest cabinet scraper I had and cut it in two with a junior hacksaw. 3 minute’s work…

 

 

…filed the hacksaw cuts with a single cut flat file…

 

 

 

…mounted it in a Draper honing guide and ground it to 45-degrees on the coarse (250) diamond plate. Less than 1 minute’s work.

 

I transferred to the fine (800) and then the superfine (1200) diamond plates retaining the blade in the guide throughout.

 

 

You must think of steel used in scrapers, regardless of the type, as a resistant material but surely malleable. Plasticine if you will. Using a hardened steel burnisher consolidates the steel blade by repeated swipes along the length as the scraper blade lies flat on the bench. I do this to both sides. 30 times is sufficient to each.

 

Now, with both faces consolidated, I focus on the bevel itself and consolidate the bevel 20 times at 45-degrees before I begin to turn the edge with each successive stroke. I take care to turn the edge only slightly with each firm pull and further care not to turn the edge too much so as to produce overturn to the edge.

 

The sweetheart cutting iron, bottom left in the picture, will lie in my cabinet drawers with other used up ones.