Scraping a Camelback Straight Edge Flat 

One of the most comprehensive scraping videos I have seen, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Thank you Mr. Rucker for demonstrating what other so call experts stand at their machines and talk about. I never really understood surface scrapping until now. You are a great teacher sir. Thanks for sharing your talents.

It is hard to believe that you can do this more accurately by hand than you can with all that high tech machinery.

Very good video. Many many years ago, I became a 'master' rated scraper. Back in the olden days, we would make our scrapers out of 'annealed and drawn' 10" mill bastard files. We would hand grind the ends for the radius and cutting angle, and put it into a 'paddle'. Imagine the handgrip end of a baseball bat, but cut off 8 inches up. The tang of the file would go into the sawn off end, and the 'swell' at the bottom of the bat would go against the hip bone, held there by the right hand. The left hand would control the downward force and tip of the scraping end. To scrape, you shoved forward with your hip, and you could 'hog' maybe .002 to .004" at a time. You could also 'touch' the surface like that, and remove just the blue by tipping the scraper and take off maybe .0001. My 'fine' surface high point count was determined by how many points in the diameter of a dime. To get my master rate, my demo project was re-truing three horribly worn 18x24 cast iron plates. I used the Whitworth method, and got them to 10 points to a dime, with the worst measured deviation of less than .0007 anywhere on any plate. The local NBS lab kept one of my plates for their lab after they certified them. That was then, but now a days, no one wants that sort of actual precision or accuracy. It would cost way to much to get anything that absolutely flat now a days. "Grind it to within .002" is good enough" is the standard in lots of industries.

I've been waiting to see how it's done. I was surprised at how much contrast there was between high and low. I'm looking forward to when you use it on the lathe and explain what exactly the straight edge is helping you to do better. Thank Richard King for me, it was his classes that made more scrapers and teachers of scraping for the future. High precision work by hand won't disappear.

Keith, thanks for taking the time to put this video together. It is videos like this one which will help continue the art of scraping. I would love to attend one of Richard King's classes but its an expensive exercise for anyone living outside of the United States. Your videos and other youtube videos are a great help for those who have read all the literature but still hungry for "hands on" experience. This is the next best thing. I, for one am looking forward to continued scraping info when you start on the Monarch. Please keep them coming. Greg (Australia)

Great vid Keith.I used to work at a company in the UK called Wellworthy.They had at the time 80% of the world Diesel engine component manufacture.Sadly no longer.In the factory they had a skilled section that manufactured large machines for export.I got to see the section.And they were using 4 ft camelbacks.How I wish I could have worked there.( no chance) Great vid,love to see the old skills.

I usually come for the random project videos, but that was a GREAT tutorial. Thank you for taking your time to walk us through it.

Most excellent video Keith...! Wonderful to see the step by step... I now have a better understanding of the goal... Cheers, Daniel.

Excellent(!) video, Keith. You hit it just right, and I am sure Richard will be proud of you for it. I will be attending one of Richard's classes in the spring, and this video will help me get to work on improving the mostly sucky work I am doing now before then. Thanks!

Keith thanks for taking the amount of time you did to demo this art. If your going to do something do it right and you have shown this trait time and time again. You are one of my favorite sites that I rarely miss. Thanks again.

Awesome video, it's so cool to see something become so flat with hand work.

Love it Keith. As a young man just about to finish business school, who's trying to pick up a few hand skills in metal and wood (without many people available in my family/friend circles to mentor me), I really enjoyed your video! Can't wait to see more scraping

Keith, for cheap lint free paper towels try coffee filters. Regular cheapo by the 100 pack coffee filters.

Incredible video Keith. Thanks for taking the time to do this--definitely explains the process.

Great video!! Please take this as a compliment - because it is meant that way: you make it seem like much more of a process and less like some sort of dark art. Thanks!

Thanks Keith, And if you can, keep bringing us along as you get more experience scraping.

Kieth,First comment. Very well done. On straight edges, I was tought, to not worry about the angle needing to be parallel to the bottom.So you are just scraping to separate flat areas. If you needed to test a part with a dove tail, you stick the angle into the slot, and transfer blue.

thousands of years :). still, great video. I just had to comment. Thank you for this, and all of the videos, actually.

Very interesting video Keith. To me the most important part was explaining the purpose of scraping, I hadn't thought about that. It was also not at all what I expected. I figured it might be like hand jointing a wooden surface with a long plane.

I'd give it two thumbs up if I could. Been waiting for this video since you hosted the first scraping class.

Thanks for sharing Keith

Thanks much Keith. I certainly appreciate this great video. This has been a great lesson for me. Wishing you many joyful days.

There is something about a scraped surface that is so beautiful. It is like a painting where a person has carefully daubed their paint brush to create something beautiful. What you have created is not only functional but great to look at as well.

Good stuff Keith, enjoyed! ATB, Robin

Very good explanation of the stages and what way to go about each stage.

Very entertaining and good video planning.,,Love the closeups. I have always admired the beautiful, frosty surfaces of hand scraped ways. I think the bench shake would drive me crazy.

I worked at Bardons & Oliver machine Co. We built Turret lathes, Cutoff lathes, and Special Machinery. We never used factory made hand scrapers, or power scrapers for scraping our machine tool ways. We made our own from old files, and they worked perfectly. The only factory made scrapers we used were curved scrapers used in scraping bores. If someone wants to do flat scraping without the expense of purchasing a scraper, one can be easily made from an old file.

Keith, your power scraping is getting pretty good: very steady and regular!

Thanks Keith. I had no idea what was involved in scraping.

Nice job Keith.

Looking forward to this transferring to the Monarch.

Nice job of clear explanation of progression through the process, Keith. I still need to find a dovetail camelback.

You made it look nice Keith !!! An now you have valuable tool. I am hesitating to do the gibs on my Chinese 10" lathe since I don't want to ruin it. I will make time to blue it to see where the high spots are and proceed from there. Nice video.

That is a beautiful workshop!

Thanks for showing the tips ☺

Great video! Thanks for sharing

THANK YOU...for sharing.

great video Keith. I have taken the class the video makes a good review but taking the class is a much better way of learning to scrape>

I really like the planer in the background..would be great to see that scraped back in and re furbished ;-)

I love this video thank you for sharing what you have learned from the scraping classes!

Ahhh, it takes me right back to the class. Happy holidays, Keith !

Sorry I may not understand correctly. Would a larger radius not make a wider cut? Thats the only thing that confuses me. Great video, never tried scraping but would love to give it a go if I ever get space to set up some things. Thanks for your time.

Great explanation and demonstration of the process. Thanks Keith!

Great video, great info. Nice to learn something new from someone who isn’t 20 years old and has 6 months experience.

It would be great to see close ups of the surface at each point of the process and a final scanned close up of the entire surface both blued and clean.

OUTSTANDING!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!!

Hello Keith, thanks for sharing your scraping skills! The sense of a scraped surface for dovetail guides makes sense to me. The valleys around each high spots provides space for lubrication, this prevents a stick-slip effect and wear. What I don't understand is why a measurement tool like your Camelback Straight Gauge is scraped. I expect high accuracy and high precision from a measuring device like a straight gauge. Smooth sliding in a dovetail guide is only secondary. The best example is your granite table - absolutly smooth and flat! Would it not be better to grind and lap the ruler? Cheers, Arthur

Keith thank you for this video it was an awesome teaching video for people who can't take Richards class i feel that unfortunately you missed a very important point out that leaves me with the question how do you blue up the dove tail personally i am not a machinist but find these sort of videos very interesting maybe there's something i have missed because i am not a machinist would it be possible for you to address this in your next video

Nice work

As usual, good vid.

GREAT VIDEO !!! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU & YOURS !

Wow - we really can be a hard bunch to please!! I don't like the shill videos, I don't like the videos that mis-represent or downright lie about things but I find it hard to fault a guy for making a video that's "right" even though it doesn't happen to interest me. I didn't realise quite how disinterested I was in scraping, it's not something I need or would do ... but I still "get it" and I watched most of it partly so I understood the process, you never know ... and partly to see if I was wrong, I'm not. But I've been fascinated by almost all of Kieth's other videos, some of the restorations have been works of art, I take my hat off to guys who build the best hi-fi or do the best paint job - or just aspire to get the best whatever it is - I get that completely, doesn't mean I'd want one but I do admire the dedication and skill. Some things just have to be as right as you can make them. No other reason is necessary.

Very interesting, I'm glad you chose to do a longer video on this one. Can you estimate how long to worked on the flat side?

Wow this was great!!

Like the cross hatches in the Cylinder of a engine... helps with oil distribution... makes a lot since..... well it does to me anyway....

Very good overview, Did you guys talk to Richard about redoing his training video, between You Sanders and Lipton that would be worth paying a few bucks for. Extend one of your next classes, film Richard for some of the instructions, and you all supplying actual scraping examples? Just sayin' , he will not be around forever.

That wobble in the table,suggests you need some bracing!.interesting video,thankyou.

Thanks for an excellent instructional video! I am not as skilled as You, have only done some flat surfaces for my projects and machine shop. I consider scraping as a very valuable skill to master for several reasons since much of my work is tool making and other precision type chores for prototyping stuff. It´s a bit of a lost art, I really never learned how to do it properly and actually learned a lot from the RU-vid videos out there. I second the value of finish scraping stuff from the surface grinder, it also has aesthetic appeal and gives an impression of high quality to the work....whether its needed or not... How do You verify that a long slim workiece like this does not become convex lengthwise? None of the tests You show seems to indicate this. It seems like it will easily wiggle sideways on the plate. I guess It is possible to intentionally scrape it a little concave initially and work from there, but is there a better way? Also to the people tired of scraping - this info is very valuable to some of us. Depends on what You are doing. More please.

Yeah thousands of years. When I talk with my very young grandkids and I say, back thousands of years ago when I was just a kid, they don't bat an eye and say wow grandpa, you must be really old. And then at the hospital when that cute young lady asks for my DOB , she stops for a minute looks up at me smiles and writes it in. I respond with, yeah dirt was just starting to appear. I just love seeing some folks writing in, to bring us up to date with the correct info, hundreds not thousands of years : ) . Well at least they are watching. I wonder if they are part of the thumbs down votes. I sure liked this video, even though I will never use the info. I just jot the info into my BOUF , that's book of useless facts. I had a Army buddy that carried one of those little green notebooks that said BOUF on the cover. If I said something noteworthy he would say "Wait Bart, let me jot that down in my BOUF." Some day, just maybe it will be helpful. Great job Keith...Ken, the really old guy.

What does Richard King think of you doing this type of video? Will you have him back for another class?

It is interesting how were made first machine tools when there were no machine tools?

Did you drain that fingernail? You can damage the bed if you leave pressure too long. A red hot flat tip straight pin will melt the nail like butter, and the blood squirt will cool the tip before you hit the quick..... Feels like heaven when it drains....

Hi Keith you sure need some patience to get to your goal. I guess you spent 3 - 4 hours so far. I still dont quite follow how you use the camel back on your lathe so I will have to wait for that video. BTW where is your nice mongrammed apron! Happy thanksgiving from the UK

This makes sense to me, I will practice. Does the metal have to be cast iron?

Or the third way of scraping..... Get out the Anderson Power Scraper. Great video Keith, Cheers!

I would strongly stress the importance of the radius and the size of the scraper blade, or it`s width to put it that way... I know im late to the party, but a wide arc, wide blade scraper will take off sub micron cuts if you need it, but a 1/4 inch wide scraper with the same arc will gouge deeper just due to pressure difference from the contact area decrease when compared to a wider blade... You can shape your scrape marks with custom scraper arcs and different widths of the blade... You can define the low spots with custom scrapers, and widen the high spots with a flat ground stone or a flat lap with frangible grit that doesn`t charge the surfaces... You can also as a newbie make nasty gouges with a narrow scraper with an acute arc to it... Robin Renz has a great section in one of his videos on this topic, i can`t remember the name of the video, but practically know all of his videos by heart, so i know that it`s somewhere among his works... Otherwise, a good scraping instructional video... All the best and kind regards! Steuss

Great video. Maybe the only thing you did not show is “ringing” the part by tapping all over with a dead blow plastic soft faced hammer to help release residual stresses introduced in the casting by the scraping process. I learned that in a recent Richard King introductory scraping class.

I'm completely new to this amazing process. I'm not personally involved in the actual process, but really enjoy watching these videos. I have a question about the dyes. If they are made by grinding pigments could these dyes be somewhat abrasive and cause wear patterns on your reference slab?

I had no idea people have been hand scraping metal for thousands of years

I wish you would've shown the blueing of the corner with how the angle was.

Great video. Thanks. What grit stone were you using ?

I'm a little confused as to what's going on? Are you saying a piece of metal straight off a milling or surfacing machine is not flat enough to use in machining? But isn't that reference Granite slab that you use to measure flatness in other materials machined flat? But I heard you say the reason for scraping is to allow oil to stay in the tiny scape hollows, why is this needed on a straight edge though? And couldn't the same effect be made with drilling lots of small holes into the raw casting before machining flat? I'm just wondering why you need oil scrape pockets on a straight edge, yes on a bearing surface I can see why where two metal surfaces rest on each other but a straight edge?

Just out of curiosity. What would the bluing pattern looked like if you had blued directly off of the grinder? Informative work, Thanks!

I love machinery,lathes n milling machines but to my untrained eye you took a perfectly flat machined surface and turned it into a rumble strip... I would need to see it to appreciate it

Without the explanations, how much actual work time (scraping, bluing, checking, rinse, repeat) did you actual take to scrape this straight edge in? Great video, thanks, Rick

Whats the of doing this? just the texture for looks?

Sick!

The first bluing, the high spots were mainly on the ends where you were light on the first scraping. So, what would the bluing on the granite plate show after the surface grinding and before any scraping?

How do you spot the other side - the dovetail side of the camel back, and make sure it is hinging ok?

Shop onomatopoeia... Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. (hand scraping with Vintage Machinery) Tapi, tap, tap. (making it fit with AvE)

How something so random and manual can be flatter than a machined surface?

Hi Keith. That's an awful amount of work to get something close to perfectly flat. Is it really worth it?

Is there any practical way to scrape a machine without having a professional straight edge of any sort? I have a very old mill the knee moves up n down very easily on the upper part of its range, but the lower is rather hard (minimal wear there I assume) I would like to spend some time with this machine in the future trying to fix it up a lil bit (no intention of making it perfect to the 1/2 thou) its never going to be as nice as a modern Bridgeport, but would just like to make it a lil better. Any thoughts?

11:20 - Why use windex in particular?

Can someone tell me the purpose of this? I saw watch wes work does this. Why not just use a mill or a flatbed sander?

So glad to have found this. Very well presented. So well I think I can do it. I would like to know if after reaching 40p or so, can it be lapped down smooth for applications that dont need lubrication. Like just a normal straight edge used to lay on a surface and check for gaps with light. Or can lapping be used instead of scraping when a smooth surface is wanted. blue it up and sand it off?

Thank you for a great video- I have a question relating to the straightedge moving over time. If the shape allows, would you just be better off using a granite bar for marking high spots rather than the cast iron straightedge?

Completely ignorant of machine work, so excuse what will be a foolish question - how often is it necessary to true up the surfaces as you’ve done in this video? Or will these surfaces remain good indefinitely. Am really enjoying your videos, maybe because it’s something never experienced.

Please. Somebody explain why you scrape something by hand after you used a milling machine to flatten it. I know there's a good reason, I just don't know what it is. EDIT: Google is my friend.... There are several reasons to hand scrape: Scraping is done to align components within millionths of an inch, allowing for consistently-held, tight tolerances. Eight to ten contact points per square inch are created to prevent rocking, add balance when tightening, and to allow for true flatness in parts. www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/metal-scraping-why-and-how-to.23188/

I thought "camelback" referred to the shape of the top (handle) of the straight edge: a dome like shape resembling the back of a camel.

YOU COULD MAKE A GET BY SCRAPER OUR OF A SAWS AL

Why do you need 'oil clearance' for a straight edge? Also get a wind screen for your mic!

Keith. Love your channel. If I were to have a straight edge cast, what kind of cast iron should I request? Thanks in advance. - ShopBoy69

So,now you have contact on the base,and the 45,but how do you make sure the 45 true to the base all the way down?Do you have a video on how to do that?I am wanting to make one also.Also if you have say a 24" or 36" straight edge,how do you use it to check the entire length of a lathe bed that is way longer than your straight-edge?Thank You for sharing!

So when it looks like the side of a crappie, it's good!

I understand wanting the machine surfaces to be checked for oil. However, why would you want your straight edge to be checked? You don't scrape your surface plate or gauge blocks, why your other measuring tools? Would lapping not be a more appropriate method for getting a completely flat reference surface?

I wonder if you could mill a straighter and flatter "edge" if your mill wasn't up on 4x4s at each end of its frame...

Oil puddling in the "low spots" turns into "slurry" when the metal off the "high spots" mixes with it. Eventually "lapping" the two surfaces together but only if lubricant is continually added to the "mix".

How much was the auto scrapper used?