General discussion > Shop Made Tools

scrapers made easy

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Clint:
Here is a project that shouldn't cost anything. Steel grass rakes are made of some king of hardenable steel and the tines make great scrapers.

 
The rake is in your garage, probably with a couple of others as well. Break the tines off with a pair of pliers and heat the end of one with a propane torch. With a pair of needle nose pliers, bend a small loop, then make a reverse bent the size of your finger.

 
Snap the tine off about 5 inches from the bent part, in your vise. a couple hammer blows will set the bend to a tight 90 degrees and the tine will easily break off.

 
Now you can grind the ends to the shapes and widths you need.

 
The ground end is bent, with red heat from the torch and hardened in oil. If you don't have much experience with hardening, this project is a good way to learn. Basically  you need to heat the steel to a red heat and cool it quickly. I have used many different kinds of oil, water, salt water, different acids etc. they all work. A general guide to quenching mediums might be - smaller things go into oil and bigger things, like hammers go into water. If you are curious, try bending the just quenched steel. If it is indeed high carbon steel it will snap like a piece of glass. If it bends, the steel wasn't hot enough or it is low carbon steel. If it's low carbon, you need to find a different piece of steel. SO... it snapped! That shows you that un-tempered steel is not really very useful. To get the too to work , it needs to be reheated. This time the heat will be very low, not red. In order to gauge the temp, shine the piece with 220 grit paper and very carefully warm it up, away from the cutting edge. slowly move the heat towards the scraper blade until the bent blade part turns to a pale gold color.
The area where you started the heat will be blue or gray, it dosen't matter. Once you get the gold you can cool everything off and sharpen the cutting edge. If things don't work out perfectly there are lots of tines left to experiment with.
BTW the rake tines can be used to make lots of very small chisels, using the hardening and tempering techniques.

 

Maineshops:
Great idea....wife just ran over a rake with the mower so I have a lot of material😂

Hungry Horse:
 Well, now that my best kept secret is out of the bag, you might as well know rake tines make good sear springs for larger locks, as well as good lift springs for patchbox lids. Heck, I even made a spring for a powder flask out of one.

  Hungry Horse

rich pierce:
Looks like my rake may be losing a couple teeth for springs.

Bigmon:
Wow, wish O would have known this a month or so ago.  Still better late than never.
This build I am just finishing up was my first try at scrapers, and I really liked using them, but needed smaller ones.  Now I know where to get them.
Thanks for sharing

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