Card scrapers

Card scrapers are an efficient tool used to put a finish on woods with difficult grain patterns like curly maple, walnut burl and many of the exotic woods.

Even a fairly straight grained wood may show small spots of grain tear-out after planing with a smoother, which can be easily smoothed with a card scraper. The alternative being the use of sandpaper, either by hand with a sanding block or using a random-orbit sander and producing lots of dust in your shop.

One of the tricky thinks about using a scraper is the sharpening process which is not clear for everyone but is in fact quite simple. All you need is a flat file, a set of waterstones (the same used to sharpen and hone your plane blades) and a burnisher to turn the burr on the edge of the scraper.

Marc Spagnuolo, the man behind The Wood Whisperer and all those great podcasts, has recently published a video showing how to sharpen card scrapers in three simple steps.

This video demystifies the process better than any article I've ever read. Great work Marc!