Did I ever misinterpret Ray's original pics. Disregard my post insinuating he was trying to be funny. As they say - "Never mind."
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Scraping the bead....Yes, that's what I just learned how to do.....and I got comments from G Rat and Mike so I can see I'm headed in the right direction. Maybe a person could scrape the bead with a spoke plane?
I do mostly epoxy now. I'm still in awe after watching LeeV do hands free cutlaps! The guy is amazing!
And Yes John, there is some funny business going on....The board in the photos is the board that's in the longboard fin box install thread. And the board is a 5'7" not a longboard......:)
Body files are the tool of choice for scraping beads, but that takes an investment,and commitment, and are way better than the razor. And that pretty little vixen is the best. Oh I got to keep telling myself I’m not a polisher, I am the world’s worst polisher. I have my fault’s. The crybabies should invest in good tools, and the more nascient should keep a keen eye out at the second hand tool stores for those vixens, that your Harbor Freight guys with their cheap chinese bullshit put out of business.
Huie, your absolutely right about a good gloss coater knows when to pull the tape, and the best use 3m 231 tape, and not the cheap stuff. Hasn’t anyone told you that Australia is another planet Huie, relax.
When I do glosses, and I don’t do many, I use a utility knife shave off the bead. I guess that’s a stanley blade? I’m a hack, so I find I can slde the corner of the handle along the rail to sort of guide the blade better. If I try to “free hand” it I wobble too much. The trick for me is getting it off in one, smooth pull, so the thing just curls right off in just about one piece. I guess if I did more of them I might get better at it…
The card scraper is a cool tool, gotta love simplicity – Occam’s Razor.
The card scraper can produce amazing results in the hands of a craftsman. I’ve seen some beautiful work done by a Swedish woodworker with a card scraper. No electricity required, cordless. Sharpening/burnishing one is an art too.
I can remember seeing G. Liddle and his cronies using single edge blades in the late 60's early 70's for cut laps and scraping. That's the first time I saw a bent blade. Ghetto is right about the Vixens. You should see the collection some horse shoers have, the older the better.They have them 2&1/2 inches wide dowm to 1/2 inch. As for the scrapers, when they seem like they aren't cutting as well all you have to to is clamp them in a vice (tight) and run a round steel along the edge to get the burr back. It is the burr and not the edge that is scraping.
In the days before sand paper one of the few smoothing tools were scrapers. You can get a much smoother finish on wood using one as compaired to using sand paper, plus the added advantage of not having to deal with dust. To sharpen, file the edge flat and then burnish a hook on one or both sides of the edge. A burnisher works great for this, or you can run any hard steel across the edge as tblank recommends
If you hacks were any good you wouldn't need razor blades. Lee has his in floating in that picture just to show the fricking witchcraft...........look at the position of his hands, it's all in the hand position. Don't get fool'd by the razor blade, it's all in the hands.
Howzit huie, How far back in time are you talking about when it comes to the single edge razor blades, been around as long as I can remember and I started glossing in the late 60's and we used them for scraping the overlap resin with them then. Aloha,Kokua
the japanese styles tajima blades i posted are better then the stanley blades and about 1/10 the price but i havent tried them on a board yet but for everything else to do with cutting they are the slayers compared to both stanly and razors
Haven't bought American Line in awhile. The last time I saw that brand of blades was at Home Depot. A Spanish label always makes me wonder about the country of origin. Mexico steel sucks, dulls fast. Alot of supply shops sell individual blades for ten cents apiece or a box of 100 for seven or eight dollars. Chinese blades are less than three dollars a hundred. Here's a trick; Lay up a cutlap. Have a beer (or two) with a buddy while you wait for it to go off on a cool Central Coast evening. Flip the blank. Drag you stool over next to the blank. Pick up a new blade between your thumb and your second finger, press down to make the inital cut with your first finger. Whoops! Wrong side of blade.
Oh for godz sakes.. people. All the razor blades come out of India, pakistan, mexico, canada etc...none are made in the USA. Yes they are all cheap, yes they do get dull fast. Hell how many time you using an old blade anyway? What you wait till they get all rusty so you can get a rusty cut lap, or maybe slip with a dull blade and cut your finger off...........Razor blade is a comodity, it's meant to be used one maybe twice then thrown away....yes they are cheap, that's why.
Hell I know of a company out of Dubai that sells most of the blades outside of the USA, and they source from India. I mean like 80-85% of all the blades out there.
Hell cut you cut laps with a sharp rock, an sharp stick....maybe beat them with an old balpin hammer. WGAS.
