Making Card Scrapers From Some Old Handsaws

In this video I make some card scrapers (also known as cabinet scrapers) out of some old rusty handsaws that I found in a skip by the side of a road.
 
How to sharpen a card scraper: How To Sharpen A Card Scraper / Cabinet Scraper To Get Wood Shavings https://youtu.be/h-KYqsAPMqk
 
Bahco Card Scraper https://amzn.to/2xwkjfk (UK) https://amzn.to/2D8p18V (US)
Narex Burnisher https://amzn.to/2PR9gFd (UK) https://amzn.to/2xtA6vu (US)
Diamond Plates 360/600 https://amzn.to/2PLmfYJ (UK) https://amzn.to/2NnbTSb (US)
 
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Recently I found two old rusty handsaws on the top of a skip by the side of the road.  I thought about maybe trying to restore one of them, just for fun, but the teeth were in really bad shape and these are cheap handsaws anyway. But then I had another idea, which was to make some card scrapers using the steel from these saws.  
I already have two card scrapers, I have this one by Bahco which I bought on Amazon and this is my go to scraper, it's great.  I'll leave a link to this in the description box.  My second scraper is this one and I don't like this one so much mainly because it's shorter than the Bahco one, so it takes more pressure using my thumbs to bend it so I can't use it for very long.  So I'm going to make my scrapers either the same size as the Bahco, or possibly even a little bit longer still.
It'll be good to have an extra scraper as I'd like to keep one on my van and maybe have another one for the workshop use that I can switch over to when my other one gets dull because sometimes when you're in the middle of a project you just want to get it done rather than stopping to sharpen tools.
First I needed to clean up the saw blades, and for that I'd use my angle grinder with a wire wheel attachment. It was really quick to clean off, even though the saws looked really rough, the rust was just on the surface.
The handles could then be unscrewed.   I always keep hold of screws, you never know when you'll need an unusual screw, and I have a lot of them.
But the handles went in the bin.
I used some 120 grit sanding discs to clean up the metal a little more, and this made it nice and shiney.
Here I'm using the Bahco as a template to mark up the shapes I wanted using a Sharpie, and out of the length of the saw I could get 2x scrapers which would be slightly longer than the Bahco by about 15mm.
I swapped over the wire wheel to a cutting disc. I used a scrap piece of MDF underneath the saw to protect my workbench and then made some scoring cuts.  I'm not great with an angle grinder, I need to get a bit more experience using them but I was able to get most of the scoring cuts nice and straight.  And once a good scoring cut is established, it's quite easy to follow the next cut in a straight line, and I just kept taking passes until I cut all the way through.
Because some of my cuts were not perfect, I used my bench sander just to clean them up and make sure they were flat. Every so often I sprayed on some water to keep the metal cool. I also used the disc sander to get the short edges square.  Not that they need to be square, but I figured I'd take the time to make them look decent.
Next I could prepare the edges and I've already posted a full detailed video about how to prepare a card scraper and I'll link to that in the description box below if you're interested.  I'll also leave links to all the tools I'm using to do this, like the diamond plates and the burnisher. But basically I polish the faces until the edges look clean from end to end, then I polish the edges until they look perfect, then I burnish the edge of the faces, and then the long edges of the scraper too.  I don't bother with preparing the short sides of the scrapers as I don't find those very useful so I just stick to the long edges.
I really wasn't sure if these were going to work...  First I tried it on some pine and I was absolutely blown away by how well they cut.  So then I tried it on some hardwood, some beech, and again, fantastic results.  They seem to work better than my real card scrapers - maybe I just got lucky with a good burrs this time around, i'm not sure, but they work great.  The steel in these seems pretty good for edge retention too, the burrs seem to last just as long as my other card scrapers.
The steel is a little bit thicker though, so it does take a little bit more pressure to flex them, but not by much.
I made four of these scrapers in total and I'm just going to keep two of them, one for my van and an extra for the workshop and I'd like to give away the other two - one on Patreon and one on YouTube.  They will be fully prepared and ready to use.  If you're interested in winning one, leave a comment below and include #giveaway and I'll pick a winner in about a week or so.  If you're a patron of the channel, I'll do a post asking if you want to be included, and then I'll pick a winner there too.
It took me about 2 hours to make 4 of these scrapers, so it was a nice quick and easy project.  If you've got an old handsaw that's no longer cutting well and it's not worth the time and effort to restore it, then it's a great way to make use of something that would otherwise be thrown away.
I hope you enjoyed this video, please subscribe if you haven't already for more weekly woodworking videos, and thanks for watching.