great post Ike- your expertise is invaluable around here. Just to clarify- any time I advise that someone use a card scraper, I am talking about one of these. You're right that a normal handyman scraper can be a very crude tool and I also don't advise using it. Here is a card scraper
http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/pag...310,41069&ap=1
and here is one being used- you can see how it would be virtually impossible to gouge the wood-- in fact it really creates a very smooth (smoother than I can get from sandpaper-- burnished) surface. I use them whenever I have to smooth a surface with very swirling or backtracking grain or when I have crossgrain to smooth (like an inlay)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdmYpS6nliQ
here's a video... it really is a great tool (warning, this is a video showing how to set up a scraper plane... and is a dry video unless you own one)
http://www.leevalley.com/US/Home/VideoPopup.aspx?v=4
If I say "scraping plane" I mean this... and if you have one (which I happen to... ) you'll know it
because they are AMAZING!
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/Pag...8431&cat=1,310
A card scraper (and a tuned scraping plane) has practically zero chance of ever digging in and does a great job at lots of tricky tasks. It takes a while to learn how to sharpen them properly, but once you do you'll have 5 or 6 laying around for different uses. I use them for everything from preparing a surface for finish to scraping off paint. they work amazingly well.
Thanks for the reminder to make a clarification Ike, and thanks for the great post too!
Lawrence