Negative rake - worth the bother?

Roger Tulk

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St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
I was watching Cap'n Eddie on YouTube some time ago, talking about scrapers. He casually mentioned that if you hold you scraper with a downward slope, you are effectively making your scraper into a NRS as the scraper then meets the wood at the same angle it would if the top of the scraper were ground down to the same angle. I thought about this a while, and decided he is probably right. I tried the downward angle and got good results. I must say, though, that I have found my scrapers usually give me a good smooth finish anyway. I have found this works especially well on the outside of bowls, to remove the odd tool mark or rough spot.

Do any of you use negative rake scrapers, or have any comment?
 
I have a scraper ground as a NRS and use it for finishing the bottom of bowls. IMHO the drawback with them is that the cutting burr lasts a very short time and then you need to regrind.
 
Hi Roger,

I agree with Ted, edge life is literally about 30 seconds. That said, the NRS grind can be extremely useful. As we all know, there are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to woodturning. If you like it, stick with it. I have found it to be rather useful for cleaning up any ridges on the insides of bowls. But I always sharpen it after about 30 seconds of cutting time. The outside of bowls never get a dedicated scraper in my world. I always use the long edge of an Irish grind bowl gouge to scrape the outside. Leaves a surface nearly perfect. Never need to start sanding courser than 180 grit.

- Hutch
 
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