Cabinet scrapers are so-o-o-o "low tech"

Some tools are so simple they hardly seem worthy of the name "tool". Cabinet scrapers fall into that category. But make no mistake: these are serious tools -- and seriously useful ones. Mine are rectangular-shaped. I haven't had occasion to need the curved ones yet.

Used properly, cabinet scrapers make it possible to clean up a surface -- for example, to eliminate marks left by a plane -- with relatively little effort. They can also be used to erase the kind of minor scratches and dings that are inevitable as you handle wood during the building process. If your glue-up is fine, and you only need to remove some squeeze-out, then a scraper will do the job quickly and easily. Some people even use them to prepare a board for finishing, instead of sanding.

I recently glued up some boards to make the top of a small display cabinet. The glue-up had a slight crown. In the course of planing down the crown, I left fine ridges that needed to be removed -- not all that unusual, but a nuisance. I reached for my favorite scraper, used my thumbs to create the necessary "bow" shape that makes it possible for the scraper do its job, and within minutes I had removed all the ridges. I also had a flawless, smooth surface almost good enough to call "done". Incidentally, you may wonder what I meant when I referred to my favorite scraper. Scrapers vary in thickness. Really hefty ones are tough to use, so I prefer fairly thin ones (.8 mm, I believe) that can be bowed with only a moderate amount of thumb-pressure.

For users there are several nice things about scrapers. They are inexpensive and readily available. They require little practice to learn to use. They make no noise. They require no dust collectors. They are also easy to read -- you can feel immediately whether they're cutting properly or whether they are dull and need to be sharpened. Fortunately, they are also very easy to sharpen -- no special gadgets are required. Sharpening involves placing the scraper in a vise, flattening the cutting edge, then using a burnisher to create a burr. (There are several good videos on the topic on YouTube.)

For retailers, scrapers have several disadvantages. They are inexpensive and readily available. They require little practice to learn to use. Wait a minute! I just said that! Ah ha! maybe that's why so few people know about cabinet scrapers, and even fewer use them. The fact is, cabinet scrapers are rarely featured by retailers. Why not? A businessperson might talk about profit margins, demographics, and marketing strategies. A person with a suspicious turn of mind might say that our friendly tool hawkers prefer selling pricey tools over simple, less expensive ones. I don't know the reason, and I won't hazard a guess. But I do know that cabinet scrapers are one of woodworking's better-kept secrets. If you work wood, then take my word for it: with just a little patience and practice, you can learn to use this tool that is almost ridiculously simple, but does a slam-bang job!