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Appreciation post: the $12 card scraper in my apron does more than my $300 random orbit sander ever did
For my first couple of years in cabinets I reached for the sander on everything. Every seam, every glue line, every raised grain spot got hit with paper, and I went through so many discs that I basically kept the sandpaper aisle in business. Then about 8 months ago I was finishing a set of maple cabinet doors in my garage here in Buffalo and had a glue line right on a face frame edge. My old boss Ray watched me grab the sander and just said try the scraper first, it takes 30 seconds. He was right. I burnished the edge, put a little hook on it with a carbide rod, three passes and the glue line was gone with no dust and no rounding over the edge. Now the scraper lives in my apron and the sander stays on the shelf unless I'm doing a big flat panel. The finish even takes stain better because the paper isn't smearing glue into the grain. What's the one cheap hand tool in your setup that you reach for way more than the power version?
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james_bell25d ago
A buddy of mine ran a trim crew for years and swore by his block plane for the same reason, door edges and glue lines that the sander just made worse. He said the paper would gum up and burnish the wood instead of cutting it, which sounds a lot like what you ran into on that maple. Cheapest tools in the box always seem to be the ones that actually earn their keep.
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