Lacquer removal using broken glass technique

V

Vintage Axeman

Joined
Sep 8, 2014
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13
Okay, very new and saw this referenced a few times. After searching the forums and Google, I am coming up dry. I have been hand sanding off lacquer and even used chemical stripper with mixed results (never again). Can someone explain the broken glass technique for removing lacquer?
Thank you! Okay, back to admiring the hanging work in the photo threads...
 
Huh, never heard of it but I am curious. Where I normally order my axes from they have an option for them to be sent without lacquer (the only option I ever use!)
 
I use a "card scraper" which is a piece of tool steel 1/8" thick about the size of a index card. Using a piece of glass is the same principal. You use the edge to lift the lacquer. Benefits are no chemicals, less dust as it produces a curl and cheaper than buying sand paper that constantly loads up with the lacquer. Some people make scrapers from old saw blades. Edges of scrapers need to be dressed with a file and burnished, don't know how you would do that with a piece of glass.
 
Works like a charm. Just be careful handling a broken piece of glass!
I'll use a piece until it no longer scrapes efficiently, wrap in newspaper, trash it and start again with a fresh piece.

Also what A Visitor said.
 
I just gave a shot at scraping lacquer with broken glass last weekend, works great. You need a .... wait for it .... piece of glass. Old timers smoothed their axe handles this way. You put it on edge and scrape. I am a little surprised I have never seen this as some kind of bushcraft skill because it makes the finest curls of wood known to man. Go to youtube and search "with an axe and knife" and watch that old fellow hang an axe. He scrapes it with glass.
 
cityofthesouth said:
I just gave a shot at scraping lacquer with broken glass last weekend, works great. You need a .... wait for it .... piece of glass. Old timers smoothed their axe handles this way. You put it on edge and scrape. I am a little surprised I have never seen this as some kind of bushcraft skill because it makes the finest curls of wood known to man. Go to youtube and search "with an axe and knife" and watch that old fellow hang an axe. He scrapes it with glass.
Click to expand...

glass works in a pinch, but anyone with minimal shop knowledge should ditch the wasteful and slightly hazardous broken glass method and make a couple cabinet scrapers, or card scrapers as earlier poster called them. if you want the "finest curls" of hickory, make a cabinet scraper. the edge lasts a lot longer than the edge on a piece of glass, and you can burnish a new edge in less than two minutes once it starts to cut less efficiently. you can use old handsaw blades, quality steel paint scrapers, pieces of large crosscut saws work well. using thick steel, like circular saw blades will work, but create very stiff scrapers and are harder to work. the blade stock should be MUCH thinner than 1/8"..closer to 1/32" makes better scrapers. a fine scraper would be around .025 to .035, and an aggressive scraper would be somewhere between .040 to .080

very easy, take an old back saw(miter box), or regular rip/crosscut hand saw blade, and cut out index card shaped rectangles, or any other shape you might find useful. use a file to flatten one or two of the edges, and burnish them at a slight angle(10* approx.) with a hardened steel rod, a quality round screwdriver shaft will work. i use a tapered bolt hole alignment tool as a burnishing tool. this creates a lip, or raised edge on the corner, which when held at a 45* approx. angle and drawn down the work piece, "scoops" a nice even layer off the workpiece. you can make them super aggressive for thinning handles, medium for finer shaping, and fine, which will create a finish close to 400g sandpaper or so. when done right, little or no sanding is needed after. the scraper is bendable also, so it doesnt cut a flat line down the work, you can round everything off just right.

here is a video in making a large cabinet scraper, same exact principles used to make smaller scrapers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq881txBKSw

another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y27MV0DQ9OI

another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVC37ToOjDU

they dont look very aggressive on a flat piece of lumber, but on a handle shaped piece, they can remove a lot of material pretty quickly. i never use glass anymore, and scrapers or essentially how i thin and shape handles(bought) now.
 
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I've made a couple scrapers from some old, worn out files. This is the best method I have found for removing lacquer. I also love using them for shaping handles. It saves a lot of time not having to remove the coarse sandpaper scratches. Just be sure to raise the grain with water before finish sanding.
 
why must you raise the grain with water? i have never once done this, and have had no issues.
 
Twoinch said:
glass works in a pinch, but anyone with minimal shop knowledge should ditch the wasteful and slightly hazardous broken glass method and make a couple cabinet scrapers, or card scrapers as earlier poster called them. if you want the "finest curls" of hickory, make a cabinet scraper. the edge lasts a lot longer than the edge on a piece of glass, and you can burnish a new edge in less than two minutes once it starts to cut less efficiently. you can use old handsaw blades, quality steel paint scrapers, pieces of large crosscut saws work well. using thick steel, like circular saw blades will work, but create very stiff scrapers and are harder to work. the blade stock should be MUCH thinner than 1/8"..closer to 1/32" makes better scrapers. a fine scraper would be around .025 to .035, and an aggressive scraper would be somewhere between .040 to .080

very easy, take an old back saw(miter box), or regular rip/crosscut hand saw blade, and cut out index card shaped rectangles, or any other shape you might find useful. use a file to flatten one or two of the edges, and burnish them at a slight angle(10* approx.) with a hardened steel rod, a quality round screwdriver shaft will work. i use a tapered bolt hole alignment tool as a burnishing tool. this creates a lip, or raised edge on the corner, which when held at a 45* approx. angle and drawn down the work piece, "scoops" a nice even layer off the workpiece. you can make them super aggressive for thinning handles, medium for finer shaping, and fine, which will create a finish close to 400g sandpaper or so. when done right, little or no sanding is needed after. the scraper is bendable also, so it doesnt cut a flat line down the work, you can round everything off just right.

here is a video in making a large cabinet scraper, same exact principles used to make smaller scrapers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq881txBKSw

another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y27MV0DQ9OI

another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVC37ToOjDU

they dont look very aggressive on a flat piece of lumber, but on a handle shaped piece, they can remove a lot of material pretty quickly. i never use glass anymore, and scrapers or essentially how i thin and shape handles(bought) now.
Click to expand...

cutting and grinding and burnishing and bolt hole alignment tools .... break glass, begin winning. It'll do in a pinch, or any time. When it gets dull you break it again.
 
why must you raise the grain with water? i have never once done this, and have had no issues.
 
cityofthesouth said:
cutting and grinding and burnishing and bolt hole alignment tools .... break glass, begin winning. It'll do in a pinch, or any time. When it gets dull you break it again.
Click to expand...

if someone is spending hours making/shaping handles, restoring or hanging axes, and in your case, cutting axe heads in half.. i dont think two minutes spent cutting 1/32" steel, and rolling an edge is somehow even mentionable. making a superior tool, that will last YEARS, and cost most guys NOTHING to make seems more like "winning" to me...

the point is that breaking glass is unnecessary... if you happen to have broken glass laying around, sure, convenient. but in any other situation, a metal scraper that can be kept, carried, sharpened in less than a minute or two, wont cut you if you slip, can be convexe or concave with finger pressure... etc... the edge of the glass only lasts a few stokes before the edge is ruined, and must be scored and broken again. its wasteful, and less efficient. a whole handle can be shaped and thinned without sharpening a scraper. you will score and break a whole window worth of glass to do the same amount of work.

to each there own i suppose. some people resist change, even when the change is for the better, in all regards.
 
I picked up a very sharp paint stripping tool and it did the trick quite easily. I was thinking about the glass option but decided it was a little dangerous getting the piece I needed. Basically, I wimped out. Ha! Thanks for the replies, though!
 
Twoinch said:
if someone is spending hours making/shaping handles, restoring or hanging axes, and in your case, cutting axe heads in half.. i dont think two minutes spent cutting 1/32" steel, and rolling an edge is somehow even mentionable. making a superior tool, that will last YEARS, and cost most guys NOTHING to make seems more like "winning" to me...

the point is that breaking glass is unnecessary... if you happen to have broken glass laying around, sure, convenient. but in any other situation, a metal scraper that can be kept, carried, sharpened in less than a minute or two, wont cut you if you slip, can be convexe or concave with finger pressure... etc... the edge of the glass only lasts a few stokes before the edge is ruined, and must be scored and broken again. its wasteful, and less efficient. a whole handle can be shaped and thinned without sharpening a scraper. you will score and break a whole window worth of glass to do the same amount of work.

to each there own i suppose. some people resist change, even when the change is for the better, in all regards.
Click to expand...


but but .... but I did have broken glass laying around *sniff*. And I saved it for this very purpose!!!!!!!!! :eek:

Who said to knock out the kitchen window to do this? Who said anything about spending hours? Crickets chirping. It's not unnecessary when the glass is already broken, and it's also the exact opposite of wasteful - it's recycling. No one is resisting your idea of change, you're just hung up on the assumption that you need to swing the axe around a china closet to do this. The piece I used was half the size of my palm and did the entire handle. My point about bushcrafting was that an old glass bottle is something you might find in the woods by chance .... here it comes ..... already broken! It's going to be ok, I promise. Feel free to send me a scraper. I will scrape the shit out of some stuff and with more satisfaction than any piece of glass could ever hope to provide!
 
cityofthesouth said:
but but .... but I did have broken glass laying around *sniff*. And I saved it for this very purpose!!!!!!!!! :eek:

Who said to knock out the kitchen window to do this? Who said anything about spending hours? Crickets chirping. It's not unnecessary when the glass is already broken, and it's also the exact opposite of wasteful - it's recycling. No one is resisting your idea of change, you're just hung up on the assumption that you need to swing the axe around a china closet to do this. The piece I used was half the size of my palm and did the entire handle. My point about bushcrafting was that an old glass bottle is something you might find in the woods by chance .... here it comes ..... already broken! It's going to be ok, I promise. Feel free to send me a scraper. I will scrape the shit out of some stuff and with more satisfaction than any piece of glass could ever hope to provide!
Click to expand...

Ha! Okay, very good point regarding bushcrafting. I am smarter after reading these comments. :D
 
Hi all, after reading this thread yesterday I went to hang an old axe and work on a store bought handle. This was my first hang and I'm still pretty new. When it came time to remove the lacquer I looked around for some sheet metal to no avail. I even looked for a bottle, but before I got to breaking I thought that the back of my knife might work, and boy was I right, I took out my crkt m16 and removed all the lacquer. Not the best method as it's hard to get flat surfaces and it takes a bit of work, but it a pinch it worked like a charm, so I figured I'd share the results.
 
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