{"id":8684,"date":"2026-05-17T04:31:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=8684"},"modified":"2026-05-17T05:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:56:27","slug":"burnisher-for-scraper-sharpening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/17\/burnisher-for-scraper-sharpening\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnisher for scraper sharpening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A burnisher to sharpen scrapers is widely available from many manufacturers in several variations. What works very well for me is one that I developed<\/strong>. As far as I know, this is unique.<\/p>\n

The rod<\/strong> was made of carbide in sub-micron grain size at my request by Innovative Carbide Inc. in Pennsylvania. The hardness of this material is rated 91-92 in the Rockwell A<\/strong> range! This is significantly harder than a 70 at the top of the C range. C is used for tool steels such as chisels, plane blades, and scraper burnishers, all usually about 59 – 64 C.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This hardness allows easier pressing on the scraper steel which is typically 48 – 52 C.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rod is 3\/16\u201d in diameter<\/strong>. This works very well. The narrow rod, especially at 91-92 A, more efficiently presses out an angled metal edge on the scraper. Less effort is required than using a rod that is twice the thickness and not as hard.<\/p>\n

After 20 years of use, the rod shows no wear<\/strong>. If I built it again, I might choose 1\/4\u201d diameter for a little more control, but certainly not wider than 1\/4\u201d. Anyway, the 3\/16\u201d works well and is exceptionally useful in small curved scrapers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 3\/8\u201d diameter, especially at the typical 60 – 62C found in almost all commercial burnishers, does not give as much effective power in pressing out the cutting edge.<\/p>\n

The thin and very hard rod in my burnisher gives great contact and contro<\/strong>l in sharpening a scraper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rod is actually 12\u201d long, which is more than I needed. I used it with 5\u201d in a wooden handle. I was never totally happy with the 7\u201d of exposed working length. I changed to 4\u201d of length in each of two<\/i> small wooden handles. This leaves 4\u201d to work with<\/strong>. Perfect.<\/p>\n

I can push the tool at an angle and move down the range of the angle. This is very effective<\/strong> in making an excellent edge in the scraper. It also works well to flatten a failing edge over the side of the scraper in intermediate-stage sharpening. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To make all of this work well, I have long used a vise based on what is shown in the 1979 book \u201cTage Frid Teaches Woodworking.\u201d I added a platform setup to hold it all in the workbench tail vise. I will review my design features in an upcoming post<\/strong> to add onto an old post about that.<\/p>\n

Burnishers I have found online, worth noting: Blue Spruce makes a two-handled burnisher with a 3\/8\u201d rod of \u201ctextured high carbon tool steel.” O\u2019Skool also makes one with two handles. The 3\/8\u201d rod is 61C \u201cchrome molybdenum.\u201d The working length of the O\u2019Skool is listed by photo as 2 11\/16\u201d, and the Blue Spruce looks about the same.<\/p>\n

My scraper sharpening burnisher tool gives easy, comfortable, and very effective<\/strong> sharpening and flattening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A burnisher to sharpen scrapers is widely available from many manufacturers in several variations. What works very well for me is one that I developed. As far as I know, this is unique. The rod was made of carbide in sub-micron grain size at my request by Innovative Carbide Inc. in Pennsylvania. The hardness of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools-and-shop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8684"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8692,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8684\/revisions\/8692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}