Formica

[Chris C]

I use Lie-Nielsen scrapers and like the way they hold an edge, but I use them a lot. Bet I don't spend $20 a year on sandpaper. It hardly ever touches my furniture. Have always thought Lie-Nielsen was a pretty good scraper. Oh well, the nice thing is no scraper is really expensive, right? Thanks for responding.

[halfdome, Danny]

I guess it’s different strokes for different folks. I only occasionally use a scraper on my furniture ( too time consuming) and use sandpaper exclusively. I see you were scraping walnut burl. When I use to make store fixtures with carpathian burl for Nordstroms I used a DA sander to finish it off otherwise they would have rejected the work.. I use a Dynabrade DA sander that runs on compressed air like those that are used in auto body shops. Any good orbital sander that runs above 10,000 rpm will give a swirl free finish if used properly. The Dynabrade runs at 12,000 rpm and they have several swirl patterns for different applications. Also it’s in the type of sandpaper you use too. I use a German made brand called Starcke by ESTA and I sometimes will use 3M tri-m-ite fre-cut paper a wht open coat. I sand no higher than 150 grit ( you just polish/burnish after that) unless I’m sanding one of my turnings on the lathe and then I sand to 1200 grit. Iv'e used the scraper and the DA sander and prefer the DA anyday. Before you knock a DA sander you should give it a try. I think you will be amazed how nice of a job it will produce.