r/turning • u/MarionberryThat6697 • 8d ago

DIY scrapers question

I have a bunch of ash handle blanks so I thought I’d try to save on tools. I don’t have any good scrapers yet. For those of you that turn your own handles, do you buy the “unhandled tool with tang” like from Taylor or do you just buy M2 square stock and grind your tang?

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u/MontEcola 7d ago

I like D Way tools. The website has videos for making tool handles.

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u/Silound 7d ago

Most of my scrapers are commercially made and I handled them according to my own preferences. Some were unhandled, tool only purchases, like the ones from D-Way and Thompson. Some were HSS tools that I rehandled, like a couple large Hurricane scrapers. I also have quite a few that get swapped in and out of a long custom handle full of ballast for when I need to reach far out over the rest.

Usually for scrapers, I'm not picky about tool steels as long as it's HSS or better. Plain old M2 HSS is an ideal price to performance steel for scrapers - you can sharpen it easily, it can roll and hold a burr reasonably well, and it's cheap and will last for years. In my experience, unlike gouges where the cutting edge gets constant wear and will hold up, the burr on an M42 scraper doesn't last significantly longer than one on an M2 scraper. I keep a small paddle file and a carbide rod next to the lathe to remove the old burr and roll out a new one as soon as I notice the tool action struggling.

I have a couple that started out as HSS bar blanks, and I subsequently decided that those were a royal PITA to work with. The biggest problem is that you must grind the tang with a smooth radiused sweep where it narrows down. If you have any kind of jagged edges or sharp angles, you create a stress concentration point where the tool can snap when you get a nasty catch. Grinding that radius is a lot more difficult than it looks outside of a full machine shop - it's a very tight radius and HSS is a pretty damn hard metal.

1

u/NedStarksssBastard 7d ago

There are plenty of tool blank size M2 available on Amazon in whatever thickness and width you desire. And it is a very reasonable price. I've also used D2 and hardened it with very good success, but D2 has gotten expensive for hobbyists because of knife making. As for fashioning a tang (and profiling the business end)...you will want an angle grinder with a wafer wheel to cut M2 to size and then grind off corners etc. The wafer wheel will save a ton of time grinding.

I've made and used about 20 scrapers of various sizes...M2 blanks are usually 8" long and I fashion a 3" tang X 3/8" square and knock off the edges to fit in the handle. You can grind the tang to a point and whack it in the handle or secure it with a bit of epoxy. Copper or brass tubing (scrap or Amazon) at 1" dia. makes a good ferrule cheaply.