Profile Scrapers

Adding Accents to Edges

Written by Christopher Cunningham

From Issue February 2016

Photos and video by the author

A millennium-old profile pattern cut into the plank edges of Norse boats has a recess for the rivet heads and is flanked by a pair of grooves.

There can be a lot of scrambling around on a small boat, so it’s best to take the curse off the edges of all the bits of wood. The rounded corners will not only keep the your shins and knuckles intact, they will also hold on to varnish and paint longer. You could just take a quarter-round router bit to everything, but the softening of all the edges blurs the sweet, sweeping lines that make a wooden boat such a pleasant study. Putting a bead on an edge rounds the corner and adds a small groove that creates a crisp yet well-protected accent line. Risers, inwales, and outwales all have sweeping curves that carry this decorative element well. A slightly more intricate treatment for plank edges has a long history. Traditional Norse boats have at their planks’ edges a decorative molding that dates back over a 1,000 years. The tool used to cut the molding, a strek høvel (strake plane), is a U-shaped piece of iron with a wood handle spanning its ends. The cutting edge was at the center of the curve and appears to have done its work by scraping rather than shaving.

The curves of this cutter match two Dremel grinding bits. It took only a couple of minutes to repurpose this bit of hacksaw blade.

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Comments (5)

Paul Montgomery says:

February 4, 2016 at 3:42 am

I love this kind of stuff. I know I’ll be keeping my eyes open for some project to use this on.

Reply
Steve Chambers says:

February 6, 2016 at 4:09 pm

An excellent example of making do w/ found pieces around the shop. For those who prefer manufactured instead of DIY, Lee Valley has, in their new tool section, a cast tool of this type.

Reply
Frank van Zoest says:

February 6, 2016 at 9:00 pm

Very nice: It reminds me of an even simpler scraper that Michael Dzubinsky (hope I’ve spelled his name correctly) showed me in Douarnenez where he built a Whitehall Dinghy. It consisted of a steel screw in a wooden block. The slot that did the scraping, was kept sharp with a file or hacksaw and cut a nice groove, rounded on one side. It was during the second festival in 1988, a long time ago, but this brings it all back.

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Andy says:

February 9, 2016 at 4:30 pm

How easy is this to do at the ends of a plank? Or do you typically do this prior to mounting the piece, scrape within 2″ or 3″ of the end, and then trim that off? I see the scraper becoming damaged or bent as you go past the end of the plank and then bring it back on.

Reply
1. Christopher Cunningham says:
  
  February 9, 2016 at 10:31 pm
  
  It’s a bit easier to make the profile before you cut any excess length off the plank end, but it isn’t difficult to scrape past the edge, extending the profile the plank’s full length. I wouldn’t try pushing and pulling the scraper back and forth over the end. Just push it, cutting only in one direction, keeping lateral pressure on the tail end of the tool until the blade passes the end. Pulling the blade into the end of the plank will bring the tool to a stop, but there is so little blade exposed that you’re likely to break it.
  
  Reply