Where and how do you use scrapers?

[crazydave911]

They work beautifully on the sides of the Tele, following the contours. Sometimes, they do a better job of flattening a lacquer drip or sag than sandpaper.

And faster

 

[Mojotron]

I prefer to use scrapers - they are the only tool that really handles complex convex/concave shapes - especially with softwoods where the hard part of the grain is much harder than the soft part of the grain.

A scraper will plane through the shape without digging into the nonuniform density beneath in a nonuniform way. The real problem I've always had is how to sharpen them - that is the critical part of using a scraper. But, while doing the final shaping of a carved top or a surface that I want to keep super flat (like a headstock) the tool of choice to me is always a scraper - unless I'm having a bad day and suffer from my inconsistent scraper sharpening skills.

 

[Laren]

Just sharpened my (unused) scraper after watching a Paul Sellers (?) video on how to. It's great now, really good on scraping binding rather than faffing about with a razor blade.