Workshop Therapy
Betty Davis once said, "Getting old isn't for sissies." Boy isn't that the truth! That's relevant because in the past couple years I have more aches and pains than ever, all seemingly with no immediate cause, probably just my youth catching up with me.
Right now I'm a bit laid up with a back injury so there aren't any significant projects going on here at 173, but of course I'm always in need of some workshop therapy. The other day I was watching a video on how to make a card scraper holder:
This guy makes some good videos and this one inspired me to make one myself. Fair warning - this is a heavily photo-centric post. I started by cutting a card from a small sheet of tool-grade steel...
Of course, the trick is to cut the card as straight as possible to reduce the amount of filing after the cuts are made.
Then I just used my grinder to make the cuts. Interesting little fact here, the grinder going through the steel and into the wood below caused some considerable amount of smoke in the workshop and guess what - the smoke detector didn't go off - hmm.
Then it was time to file the long edges of the card to make it square and sharp...
Then used my brand new burnisher.
If you don't know what that is, or what it's used for, Paul Mayer has an excellent article on Woodworkers Guild of America, you can read the article here. After that, I made the handle, shaping it a bit to make it more comfortable on the hands...
And just for fun, I used another tool made at 173 to find the center of the handle for the tension screw, the center finder and marker. Geeze, I should do a quick post on that one(And I did the next day)!
That done, I used a forstner bit to create a recess, then drilled a center hole for inserting a t-nut.
Before I went any further, I stained the handle with Minwax Gunstock stain, which seems to be my go-to color with these little hand tools made at 173:
I also learned the proper way to insert a t-nut by drawing it into place from the opposite side by tightening it with a washer and nut. Of course, two whacks with the hammer accomplishes the same thing. Here you can see why I recessed the front, just to set the t-nut close to level with the face of the handle...
With another small piece of scrap wood, I made a spacer that goes between the scraper and the handle. The screw rests in the little hole I drilled and pushes the card to the desired curve, and also helps give a little stability and support to the scraper.
Here you can see the adjustment screw with that little spacer on the opposite side of the handle:
Here it is with the scraper attached with washers and screws.
The handle side:
And the scraper side...
I gave it a test run and it works great! The one feature I want to redo is that I'll cut a new card a little wider and add notches on the sides to help keep the scraper from drifting up from the downward pressure. Aside from that - an excellent little tool!