Official Luthiers Forum!

Scraper chatter. You know what I mean. When the scraper skips across the surface of the wood causing a ripple or washboard effect. I hate that. When it happens I've tried changing directions, resharpening, slowing down, speeding up. Nothing seems to help. Does anyone know how to stop or prevent this from happening?

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Alain
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Well it depends. Sometime it's unavoidable, like when scraping partial end grain (neck heel for example, specially at the jonction of the neck heel and the neck itself). In these situations, I always end up sanding off the ripples.

On other cases, it's on figured wood, where the grain runs in many directions. Alternating direction on every stroke helps a lot.

Otherwise playing with the the scraper angle (not the vertical angle, but rather the angle the scraper has according to its direction. Think snow plow...). Alternating angle at every stroke helps also when none seem to make it right.

Hope this helps.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Have you tried skewing the scraper? It normally helps (a lot).

Edit:
I realized too late that Alain Moisan suggested exactly the same: the "snow plow".

Excellent. I will try the snowplow technique. Thank you.

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Alain
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One of the reasons I like the heavy scrapers is that you get much less chatter. The added mass reduces the amount of bouncing around. I never was able to get the edge work on a violin right until I got a heavy one. You still need to change the angle ('snow plow') with every pass, particularly on figured wood.

What Todd &Alan said!
Take your time & practice on scrap!
Mike

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Mike Collins

If you take Fine Woodworking, or know somebody that does (your library
may have it also), the July/August issue (#227) has an excellent article
on how to sharpen your scraper. The best thing I took away from it was
that I was using too much force and angle forming the burr, and too much
force turning the hook, so I got big, uneven burrs. As Todd said, the large
burrs I was getting don't work as well as a small, even, sharp burr. Do it
right and you can reset the burr two or three times before needing to
file and rehone the edge. The steel gets work-hardened each time you
return the edge, and it lasts longer.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

I find flexing the scraper harder can help stop chatter, of course the trade is it cuts with more of a scoop.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/