Last night I was doing a little scraping on the fore arm of my current build but was not satisfied with the quality of the finish. The wood felt rough to me. Regardless of how well I filed and burnished the edge of the scraper the scraped surface still felt rough.
Then I had a brain-blast! Rough edge yields rough surface! So I pulled out the diamond plate sharpeners that Dave Price talked me into buying (Thank you Dave, they are worth the money!) and I ground down the edge of my scraper with the diamond plates rather than a file. After polishing the edge with the extra fine plate I burnished the edge with my burnishing rod and tried the scraper again. Holy Guacamole, what a difference!
I suppose if I were smarter I would have reasoned earlier that the finer the finish on the scraper the finer the scraped finish. But......well, you all understand, I hope.
I just thought I would share this little revelation so that any other slow learners out there like me won't have to wait umpteen years to figure this little thing out.
Best Regards,
JMC