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8" straight edge scraping- Advice?

Lucaselef

Aluminum
Joined
Mar 19, 2015
I'm working on one of my first scraping projects and have gotten the sole of the straight edge flat. Here is a picture of the last blueing I took. Any advice for improving this, or does it look good enough for a reference surface? Secondly, which should I scrape next, the top surface which is parallel to this, or should I do the back surface at a 90 degree angle?


 
What are you going to use it for? If it's a reference for scraping dovetails you only need scrape the top edge of the bevel. The angle doesn't matter (so long as it is less than your dovetail angle) nor do you need to make any special effort to align it with the bottom face.

If that's your first part you can be proud of where you have got to. I'm sure you can see that the edges are rolled a bit so keep away from those for a couple of rounds at least. The face is fairly well flat so you could work on increasing contact. Work on splitting those blue spots in half with small scrapes - but don't remove all the blue. If any of them show a shiny island in the blue, knock that off and leave the rest of the blue. Keep all your scrapes separate by at least the width of your scrape marks and same for the ends - don't join any of your scrapes at this stage and you will soon see the contact area increasing.
 
Yes, I plan to use it for dovetails at some point in the future, but I don't have a project lined up for it. I also wanted to make the sides, back and top parallel and perpendicular just for the practice.
 
Try keep away from the edges ( both sides same time !!!! ) while you're stoning. Otherwise, nice work - congrats !

I would do the 90 deg after this but that's me, others might have better ideas.
 
My best advice is to go for a longer one next.

I have a 10" or so straightedge, which I was very proud of years ago. I may actually have used it ONCE!

an 18" is about the minimum useful for most purposes, I find. For shorter, it is usually sufficient to scrape a small "block" for angles, etc, since you will need to check the whole dovetail for flat anyhow.
 
Nice work for a first effort.

Personally, I’d refine the bottom flat after doing the dovetail. Bottom may warp a little. Would not bother with 90deg side or top.

For next project suggest either an angle plate or a surface plate. Both will teach consistency in scraping depth, an angle plate will introduce step scraping. A longer straight edge is also worthy, but I like to mix things up.

Were I doing things again, if it was to be another straight edge, I’d get Denis 26” straight edge casting next after your “starter”

L7
 








 
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