Just finished a spoon that I made for my Niece Bethany out of a cherry limb from her back garden. I'm not usually a fan of sanding my spoons. To be honest I'm not a fan of sanding at all, but though I love the look of a tooled finish and appreciate the story that it tells, most non carvers think of a tooled finish as being unfinished. So as this was a gift I decided to sand it.
Before I got the sand paper out though, I decided to see what initial work could be done with a cabinet scraper. For anyone that doesn't know what a cabinet scraper is, it's a small thin metal plate with a burr created on one or more of the edges. This essentially becomes a tiny blade, which when scraped across the wood produces very fine shavings. I bought mine for about three pounds, but they can be easily made from saw steel (a good use for modern, unsharpenable saws). I was really pleased with the finish it produced, smoothing out all of the marks and making sanding a very quick job. This is definitely the way to go in the future when I next decide to sand a spoon.
I also decided to make a leather wallet for my scrapers. The stamping isn't very neat (I used old letter press), but I like the idea.
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