Poor man's burnisher

The poor man’s ticket to burnishing

Two weeks ago I discussed another Fine Woodworking article, which I thought complicated sharpening, burnishing and setting up the #80 type cabinet scraper to create a keen blade edge and indeed we showed that many erroneous statements soon become accepted as absolutes when no one counters what’s being said and the real absolutes get cast aside by a careless statement. You can read what was said here if it’s of interest.

There are a few burnishers out there for you to consider and some are well designed and practical. In that article, Fine Woodworking mentioned that you could buy the burnisher for $65 and for some that will be a lot to pay for a burnisher. Take a look in your tool box. You most likely already have one of these. No, it’s not so pretty but it is surprisingly truly functional and very effective for turning the edge on both the card scraper and the #80 scraper blades. This one is a Stanley brand and is a fairly large nail punch (set USA), about 1/8”. I also tried a 1/16” punch and that worked well too. My first thought was that this poor man’s burnisher would drag because of the diameter size, but that wasn’t the case at all. It burnished just as well as the nice handled type, felt safe in the hand and takes up no room in the tool chest till.

I can't imagine that this tool ill cost you more than a couple of dollars if you shop around.

Straight off the cricket bat (can’t wait to watch it on the village green) this tool delivers the goods. I could imagine losing one of mine by slipping it into a turned handle of rosewood with a brass ferrule, but that’s just another blog.