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Making Sandavik Scraper Thinner and more "bendy"

addman20

Plastic
Joined
Nov 24, 2020
Hi guys, I was reading the forums and came across Richard mentioning that sometimes you can thin the sandavik scraper to make it more bendy. I'm a total newbie to scraping and I think it was mentioned that making the Sandavik scraper thinner would help give me more control especially for a new person.

Has anyone out there done this? Right now my sandavik scraper is very stiff. If I do take some thickness off, how much should it be? I'm worried I would end up taking off too much and make it too bendy and hard to control again.

Thanks guys any input would be appreciated.
 
What size scraper do you have? They have 3 models. I have had students drill holes in handle as shown. Also I tell students to mill or grind out .020" at a time the middle 40% and try it until you like it. I also have people ush down on a bathroom scale and you need to press down about 7 pounds to get it to cut. Also this also depends on how sharp the blade is. You will need to grind the blade tip radius to 60 mm R and a neg rake of 5 deg's on a 600 grit or finer grit diamond wheel. :-) Merry Christmas. Rich
 

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Thanks

What size scraper do you have? They have 3 models. I have had students drill holes in handle as shown. Also I tell students to mill or grind out .020" at a time the middle 40% and try it until you like it. I also have people ush down on a bathroom scale and you need to press down about 7 pounds to get it to cut. Also this also depends on how sharp the blade is. You will need to grind the blade tip radius to 60 mm R and a neg rake of 5 deg's on a 600 grit or finer grit diamond wheel. :-) Merry Christmas. Rich


Hi Rich, thanks for your reply.

I have the 620-20 model which I believe is the 20mm width the least widest one.

About the the diamond wheel what if I have 160 grit? Could I make do with that our do I need a 600 grit?

Merry Christmas to you too
 
Don't overthink this. I got a couple of scrapers that Forrest Addy made by brazing carbide blanks to 1018 CRS at a scraping workshop in Seattle. When I later took a workshop run by Richard King, he suggested that I mill down the shanks. I did this to one of the scrapers between sessions. The CRS bowed like a banana since I took all the material from one side, but was trivial to hand-straighten.

I don't have the result in front of me, so can't tell you today what the finished thickness was. Perhaps 1/4" inch? Next time I have that part of the shop opened up, I will measure it.

And yes, making the shank more flexible was beneficial for scraping. It was easy to tell because I could directly compare between the one I left original and the one I milled down.
 
I did mill down the shank of the larger one (30 mm?) to approximately half the original thickness and it's still too rigid for me and use it only for roughing. The challenging part of progressively thinning it down is how to clamp it down on the mill table, one it becomes more flexible. Using a surface grinder would be better.

I haven't messed around yet with the narrow one, since it is anyhow less comfortable to hold.

In the meantime, I have built my own "minimalist scraper", consisting in a piece of 3/32" thick and 1 1/4" wide 1018 bar, to which I have brazed a piece of 1/4"-20 all thread to screw on a 4" flap disk and milled a pocket for the blade on the opposite end.

I have also thinned considerably the insert holders for the Biax and they work way better.

I will try to upload a few pictures and measures of the Biax insert holders at the end of this week and of my scraper next time I go to Tuckahoe (likely in two weeks).

Paolo
 
Don't overthink this. I got a couple of scrapers that Forrest Addy made by brazing carbide blanks to 1018 CRS at a scraping workshop in Seattle. When I later took a workshop run by Richard King, he suggested that I mill down the shanks. I did this to one of the scrapers between sessions. The CRS bowed like a banana since I took all the material from one side, but was trivial to hand-straighten.

I don't have the result in front of me, so can't tell you today what the finished thickness was. Perhaps 1/4" inch? Next time I have that part of the shop opened up, I will measure it.

And yes, making the shank more flexible was beneficial for scraping. It was easy to tell because I could directly compare between the one I left original and the one I milled down.

Okay thank you, I see what you mean. I'll get to it and just work progressively seeing how it feels.
 
can't tell you today what the finished thickness was. Perhaps 1/4" inch? Next time I have that part of the shop opened up, I will measure it.
Well, it took a while to find these, because I carefully put them in a toolbox, which then sat in my front hallway, not my shop, for months. No photos and just eyeball measurements at the moment.

Forrest made these from 1x0.25" CRS. Full width length about a foot to the tang shoulders. About the last 4-5" tapered from 1/4" thick down to the thickness of the carbide, about 1/8". On one of mine I milled about 7-8" down to that thickness, did not bother with any sort of taper, just a radius where the thin section met up with the full thickness section.

The CRS bowed like crazy when I took it out of the vice, since I took all the material from one side. Hand straightened, no problem, and no danger whatsoever of taking a bend when in use.
 
Hi Paolo,

I have also thinned considerably the insert holders for the Biax and they work way better. I will try to upload a few pictures and measures of the Biax insert holders at the end of this week.

I would be interested to see this, because my Biax came with a short stiff holder, into which one can clamp carbide blades. I have never even tried it, because it looks so stiff compared with the conventional brazed blades. It would be great if I can make that more useful by thinning it out. So please do post those photos/measurements!

Cheers,
Bruce
 
Hi Paolo,

I would be interested to see this, because my Biax came with a short stiff holder, into which one can clamp carbide blades. I have never even tried it, because it looks so stiff compared with the conventional brazed blades. It would be great if I can make that more useful by thinning it out. So please do post those photos/measurements!

Cheers,
Bruce

If the only Biax holder you have is the short stiff one, you might consider making a duplicate of a longer holder rather than making the shorter one more flexible. There may be times when you need to just shovel off material, and leaning hard on a stiff toolholder might be an advantage.
 
newbie here i have a anderson 1 inch carbide scraper and it feels stiff but i still need to take a class should i wait or thin it out it is not a tubular it is a solid shank.
 
In many classes, students squish the tubular Andersons also make sure the blade is pulled out the longest setting. Many make a Biax style with a carbide insert clamp longer then the standard one. Other brother (Daryl Smith) one of our members made several different lengths .
 








 
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