> I started to think shaving > does not work for plywood! (Anyone have any comments on this?).
It is possible to scrape plywood wheels: Jean-Luc Bleton makes his from unbanded plywood, and they work well. Part of the trick may be using completely voidless ply, such as high-quality Baltic Birch or Finnish Birch. Unfortunately the quality of these products has decreased steadily over the last decade, so it's a lot harder to find really voidless pieces. The other trick of scraping a wheel is that you have to take very, very small cuts. If there's the slightest runout (high spot or low spot) you need to shave off just the high spot at first, then slowly advance the blade until more and more of the high spot is taken down. It's really difficult to keep the blade from riding on the wheel surface. The blade must be sharp, sharp, sharp. The scraping cut dulls it quickly, so you have to resharpen often - it's not unusual to spend more time sharpening than scraping. Some people use a chisel, some use cabinet scrapers, some use plane blades, some use freshly broken glass. Your mileage may vary. Sanding is problematic because the block can't help but ride the surface as it goes up and down. We wish it weren't so, but it is. ;-) The second most dreaded sound a person scraping a wheel will hear is the whine of chatter resulting from going too fast or too deeply. It means that the blade has vibrated, producing a surface that looks (at high magnification) like a crinkle-cut potato chip. [Brit tranlation: potato crisp]. The only thing to do is hold on tighter, scrape lighter, and gently get rid of the rough patch. The most dreaded sound? That awful "thunk" as the blade digs in and makes a gouge: too much pressure was applied, or something shifted, or you slowed down. When you hear that, you know that you've got a lot of work ahead to scrape down the rest of the wheel surface to get below the level of the ding you just put in it. Happy scraping, folks! Alden Cali and Alden Hackmann Olympic Musical Instruments: Hurdy-gurdies, audio production, stained glass, laser art, embroidery "I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else." - Winston Churchill --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy?hl=en?hl=en Although the method of distribution has changed, the rules of courtesy and appropriateness of postings remain the same as on the old list on Majordomo. These rules may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. Just ignore anything about Majordomo. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
