Hand Scraping . . .

faces, but then you would have the

problem of preventing the oil from
running out, or of replacing it fast
enough. (Oil grooving is normally
added to heip dis t ribut e the oil,
whether or not the ways are scraped.)
This discussion could lead one to
wonder about the e f f e ct of the
amount of area in contact on a set
of ways. Hand scraping reduces the
contact area but it's distributed even-
ly, and it is the distribution that's im-
portant. The flatter the two mating
surfaces are, the more even the dis-
tribution of the contact areas. But
there is a principle of mechanics that
says "friction is independent of area."
This means that it will take the same
force to move the table whether there
are 10 square inches or 100 square
inches in contact. (Wear is another
load, the faster the wear.)
The main point is that it's better
lubrication we are after, not more or
less contact area. If Jubrication were
perfect, the ways would never wear
out. If a table moves harder as it
wears, it is probably related to lubri-
cation and cert ainl y not to the
amount of contact area.
How Scraping Is Done
The purpose here is not to teach
the art of scraping, but only to give
an idea of what is done.Although the
doing is difficult, the actual idea be-
hind it is simple enough.
be scraped off, a blue paste is applied
to the master fixture either a flal
surface or a V-way that is the opposite
of the shape being scraped so that
when the blued master is rubbed over
the way surface, the bluing transfers
to the high spots of the way.The blue
high spots are then scraped off by
hand with a special scraping tool.
This operation of rubbing the blued
master and scraping off the high spots
is repeated until the way surface
shows a uniform transfer of blue.
There are, of course, any number
of techniques that a scraper must
know.To mention just two, a dull file
is usually rubbed very lightly over the
surface between bluing applications
to remove any burrs. And rags are
never used to wipe the surface; a
brush or the bare hands are used. If
rags were used, tiny pieces of lint left
behind would cause misleading mark-
ings at the next application of bluing.
A scraper does his own inspecting
as he works when he compares his
way surface with the master.Regard-
ing inspection, all the inspector could
when to quit scraping.
In the past, we had standards as to
how many spots of bearing surface
per square inch the surface must
have and what percentage of the total
found that .the percentage of contact
area is almost impossible to check-
and the spots per square inch are now
left to the judgment of ihe scraper.
However, he normal l y s t ri v e s f or
about twenty to thirty spots per
square inch.
In the scraping process, some of
the roughing work is now done with
powered hand scrapers. They are still
the hard work out of the scraping
operation.When you get down to the
final fitting though, there's still no
substitute for the ."feel" of straight
hand scraping. nuns
WHY ARE
THEY HAND
SCRAPED?
Reprinted from
MODERN MACHINE SHOP
600 Main Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
WHY ARE
THEY HAND
SCRAPED?
Iy H. Schanzenbach
Technical Editor
DoAll Company
Des Plaines, Illinois
is nothing like the "tee!" of the
mpte hand tool for the final finish.
/ays that are flat and Improved Lubrication and saddle ways that are flat and
match within tolerance, only to find
ihat the table is not quite parallel
with the spindle to the required toler-
ance. Can you imagine the skill that
would be needed to remove just the
right amount of metal from the right
places with a scraper, without losing
the flatness, to adequately correct the
This was certainly not the original
purpose of hand scraping and should
not be relied on to correct any large
misalignments. Nevertheless, a skill-
ed scraper can make this sort of cor-
rection in a surprisingly short time.
Despite the skill required, this ap-
proach is less expensive than the al-
ternatives of holding closer machin-
ing tolerances on a number of parts,
or building in reliable and tamper-
proof adjustments designed to cor-
rect the line-up.
Experience has proved that scraped
ways reduce friction through better
lubrication, but opinions as to why
differ somewhat. The most popular
theory seems to be that the scrape
pockets (or more specifically the flake
pocketsextra deep pockets deliber-
ately added for lubrication) provide
many pockets of oil that are "shear-
ed" off by the microscopic bearing
surfaces.
Another logical theory is that we
come close to floating the top surface
continuously on an oil film, which is
the goal in all lubrication. The main
reason this happens is that the ir-
regular pattern of the oil pockets pro-
vides a very difficult escape route for
the oil. The ideal situation for lubri-
cation would be to have a film of oil
between two perfectly smooth sur-
Most of the mughing-ln work is made With hand scraped ways, this surface
easier by using a powered hand tool, grinder produces a flatness of 0.0005 inch.
Hand scraping is an artistic skill
more difficult than wood carving. It
is the starting point to obtain the
basic accuracy required for today's
precision machine tools. Hand scrap-
racy of other machine tools and elim-
inates distortions caused by clamping
forces and the generation of heat.
Hand-scraped ways are more friction-
freethanks to be t t e r lubrication.
There are many techniques the scrap-
will give him that "feel" he must have
to obtain precise flatness.
When you walk through a machine
tool builder's shop and see men
scraping ways by hand, you can't
help wondering, "Can they really im-
prove on today's machined surfaces
by hand scraping!" The DoAII Com-
pany says the answer is no, if you're
talking about measured surface fin-
ishbut there are still some excellent
reasons for hand scraping. For one
eliminated.Machine tools are used to
manufacture other machine tools, but
can never make a reproduction more
accurate than the original. So there
must be a starting point where the
first machine does not rely on another
machine for its basic accuracy. In
other words, you have to start with
human effort; in this case, in the form
of hand scraping.
Hand scraping is not, as it may
seem, "free-hand" work. Rather, it's
a method of making a near-perfect
copy of a master that was also a hand-
generated surface.
Scraping, though hard work, is an
artistic skill. It would probably be
easier to make wood carvers out of
most of us than hand scrapers. Not
much published material seems to be
available on the subject especially
on "why." This is probably because
it is considered an art.
Where Do You Start?
If a manufacturer decided to grind,
rather than hand scrape, the ways on
a surface grinder, he must have a bet-
ter class of accuracy in the "parent"
grinder than he plans to have on the
new one.So where does the first ma-
chine get its accuracy? It has to be
or it has to rely on some other meth-
od that will generate a truly flat sur-
face, or that will come close to copy-
ing a generated flat surface.
The idea of a generated surface can
be illustrated by comparing t hree
methods of making a circle. (A circle
is a line rather than a surface, but it
illustrates the idea.) With an ordinary
compass a draftsman can theoretical-
ly generate a perfect circle.If he runs
his pencil around an existing hole in
a plastic template, he copies any in-
accuracies in the existing hole. If he
draws the circle free-hand, the accu-
racy will depend upon his limited
skill.
Scraped saddle way shows "oil pockets,"
oil feeder hole, and short feeder grooves.
A scraper using a master fixture to trans- A partly scraped way with a fresh appli-
ler bluing onto the ways of a workplece. cation of bluing to reveal the high spots.
Perfectly flat surfaces can theoreti-
cally be generated by alternately rub-
bing (lapping) three surfaces together.
For simplicity, let's say it's three rocks,
each of which has a fairly flat side.
If you rubbed these flat sides together
alternately in some kind of random
sequence, you would come closer
and closer to getting all three sur-
faces flat. If you used only two rocks,
you could get a matched set, but one
could be concave and the other
1
con-
vex. In practice, scraping, instead of
lapping, is used and a definite pairing-
off sequence must be followed.This
principle has been used to make the
master fixture that the hand scraper
uses.
In using the fixture, the scraper puts
bluing on the master and slides it over
the surface that he is working on to
reveal where additional scraping is
needed. As he repeats this process,
he comes closer and closer to making
a perfect copy of the master surface,
which was a truly generated surface.
Most grinder cas t ings that are
scraped are milled to within a few
thousandths of the final dimensions
and flatness and then stress relieved
(heat treated to rel ieve re s idual
stresses). They are then sent back for
light clean-up machining before hand
scraping. Although hand s craping
takes a lot of time with consequent
high labor costs, it takes the place of
alternate processes that would entail
high equipment costs. To eliminate
scraping, the parts would have to be
routed to expensive machinery of the
highest precision available for final
machining.
Besides the high equipment costs
that would be involved in the latter
process, another consideration ap-
plies, in machining a part, especially
a large casting, some kind of heavy
clamping or holding is neces s ary.
When machining to a fraction of a
thousandth, this clamping force can
cause enough distortion in the work-
piece to jeopardize the accuracy of
the workpiece after unclamping.The
heat generated during machining can
also cause distortions.
That's one of the beautiful Jhings
about scraping. There are no clamp-
ing forces and the heat generated is
practically nil. The casting is support-
ed at only three points to make sure
it doesn't deflect from its own weight.
.When 3 machine tool with scraped
ways gets worn, it can be recondi-
tioned by rescraping. This is a great
advantage compared to the alterna-
tives of discarding the machine or
sending it back to the factory to be
completely torn down, remachined,
and so on-
When the ways on a machine tool
need rescraping it can be done by
service men from the factory, but it
is often possible to find a man locally
to do the rescraping.
Hand scraping can be used, within
limits, to obtain final geometric line-
up with other machine el ements.
Visualize a hand-scraped set of table
Perfectly flat surfaces can theoreti-
cally be generated by alternately rub-
bing (lapping) three surfaces together.
For simplicity, let's say it's (hree rocks,
each of which has a fairly flat side.
If you rubbed these flat sides together
alternately in some kind of random
sequence, you would come closer
and closer to getting all three sur-
faces flat. If you used only two rocks,
you could get a matched set, but one
could be concave and the other con-
vex. In practice, scraping, instead of
lapping, is used and a definite pairing-
off sequence must be followed. This
principle has been used to make the
master fixture that the hand scraper
uses.
In using the fixture, the scraper puts
bluing on the master and slides it over
the surface lhat he is working on to
reveal where additional scraping is
needed. As he repeats this process,
he comes closer and closer to making
a perfect copy of the master surface,
which was a truly generated surface.
Scraped saddle way shows "oil pockets,"
oil feeder hole, and short feeder grooves.
Most grinder cas t i ngs that are
scraped are milled to within a few
housandths of the final dimensions
nd flatness and then stress relieved
heat treated to relieve re s idual
:resses). They are then sent back for
ght clean-up machining before hand
:raping. Although hand s craping
jkes a lot of time with consequent
high labor costs, tt takes the place of
alternate processes that woutd entail
high equipment costs. To eliminate
scraping, the parts would have to be
routed to expensive machinery of the
highest precision available for final
Besides the high equipment costs
that would be involved in the latter
process, another consideration ap-
plies. In machining a part, especially
a large casting, some kind of heavy
clamping or holding is neces s ary.
When machining to a fraction of a
thousandth, this clamping force can
cause enough distortion in the work-
piece to jeopardize the accuracy of
A scraper using a master fixture to trans- A partly scraped way with a fresh appli-
fer bluing onto the ways of a workplece. cation of bluing to reveal the high spots.
the workpiece after unclamping.The
heat generated during machining can
also cause distortions.
That's one of the beautiful Jhings
about scraping. There are no clamp-
ing forces and the heat generated is
practically nil. The casting is support-
ed at only three points to make sure
it doesn't deflect from its own weight.
.When a machine tool with scraped
ways gets worn, it can be recondi-
tioned by rescraping. This is a great
advantage compared to the alterna-
tives of discarding the machine or
sending it back to the factory to be
completely torn down, remachined,
and so on-
When the ways on a machine tool
need rescraping it can be done by
service men from the factory, but it
is often possible to find a man locally
to do the rescraping.
Hand scraping can be used, within
limits, to obtain final geometric line-
up with other machine elements.
Visualize a hand-scraped set of table