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Lee Valley Veritas
Scrapers
By ALF
June 21, 2004
The final episode in this voyage through the Veritas/Brimarc
catalogue. Let’s hope we just scrape though with out too many bad jokes… (or
then again... 
)
The two scraping-related offerings from Lee Valley Veritas that concern us here
are their takes on the #80 cabinet scraper and the #112 scraper plane. There are
obvious competitors to both, so comparisons will be inevitable. Both are a
little beefed up compared to their rivals, and both offer peace of mind, rather
than pieces of plane all over the concrete floor, in the shape of ductile iron
bodies. The cabinet scraper has a 2 ¾” wide blade, carbon steel as far as I
can tell, with 45° bevels on both edges ready for a burr for rough work, or
honing and then burnishing for finer tasks.
Left: Stanley #80. Right: Veritas cabinet
scraper
The scraper plane is supplied with a 2 7/8” wide, thin carbon steel blade with
a 45° bevel and an option on a 1/8” thick A2 steel alternative. The thinner
blade allows you to use the blade bow thumbscrew; a feature not found on the
L-N. Unspecified hardwood handles on the scraper plane and brass screws on both
complete the bit and pieces.
Left: Veritas scraper plane. Right: Lie Nielsen
#112
The packing is cardboard box, rust inhibitor paper and packing paper where
required. Both sets of instructions had to be downloaded from the Lee Valley
website, and proved extensive. See them for yourself here
and here.
The cabinet scraper looks like a bigger, meaner, brother to the Stanley #80. The
cutter clamp bar is a bit chunkier, the clamp and thumbscrews are brass rather
than chrome plated and the finish is less shiny, but otherwise not a lot to
differentiate at first glance. A more careful look reveals the sole is rather
larger behind the blade.
Left: Veritas cabinet scraper. Right: Stanley
#80
The scraper plane is also a little larger than its competition, the usual
slightly rough finish on the chunkier casting much in evidence. For the first
time on a Veritas plane there seems to have been machining done for appearance
sakes rather than any practical use, along the front bottom half of the sides.
It does relieve the endless black a little, I must say. The machining, what
there is of it on these types of tool, is fine and well done. The finish overall
is okay too, no sharp edges or the like.
Left: Veritas scraper plane. Right: Lie Nielsen
#112
The blades on both were reasonably finely ground. It took me a little while to
get the backs at least usable near the edge, but that always seems to be a
problem with these thin blades. I followed the instructions to the letter and
put a 15° burr on both. How the previous guy had managed to review them without
even doing this much is beyond me.
Setting the blade in the cabinet scraper is a simple matter of placing the tool
on a flat surface, backing off the thumbscrew at the rear, slipping the blade in
‘til it touches the work surface, bevel facing backwards, and then tightening
up the clamp screws (by hand seemed sufficient). Then just flip the scraper
over, sight along the sole as you tweak the thumb screw to create a camber and
there you have a nice curved cutting edge. Add more camber, and thus depth of
cut, by tightening the thumb screw as required. Simple. 
The scraper plane is a little more complicated because the blade angle can be
adjusted from vertical to 25°, but the instructions take you step-by-step.
Again, you place the plane down on a flat surface, adjust the frog to around 5°
and back off the thumbscrew at the rear.
Setting the frog angle to 5°. The two brass
wheels behind the frog are the frog angle adjusters. The thumbscrew is lower
down, out of sight
Slip the blade in as before, the edge resting on the surface, and tighten up the
lever cap knob. This leaves the edge flush with the sole. Tweak the frog forward
just a tad and the edge moves just below it, ready to cut. You can fiddle about
with tiny adjustments of the frog to alter the cut, or with the thin blade
simply apply a curve to the blade just as you do with the cabinet scraper. All
much easier than I’ve probably made it sound. 
As you can see, the adjustments on the cabinet scraper are very basic, and it’s
hard to go wrong with them - even Stanley have yet to manage that. 
The scraper plane is a little more complicated, but very smooth and hardly a
brow-furrower if you follow the instructions. The mouths on scrapers are, of
course, unimportant, and are fixed.
Holding the cabinet scraper was a little different to the Stanley #80, and not
just because of the increased weight. The handles are a little further back and
lower, and give a slightly improved pushing angle. With that and the longer area
of sole behind the cutting edge it’s very hard to get the dreaded
falling-off-the-end-of-the-board problem, or "snipe", that can be a
real pain when you’re not in practice. All in all a pretty comfortable tool to
use. The scraper plane was let down for me by the rear handle again, although
there was at least plenty of room for my second opinion’s fingers this time.
The front knob is more of a low, mushroom shape, and I liked it a lot. It
automatically places your hand the right way to provide pressure on the toe,
while the higher knobs tend to promote more of a "microphone style"
hold which isn’t so good. So a bit of a curate’s egg then.
Front knob
I gave both tools a nasty test on some stringy, mahogany-like stuff with the
stripes of reverse grain and they both flew through with flying colours. The
scraper plane was particularly pleasant to tackle the task with; the weight gave
it some real authority through the cut and the thumbscrew allowed me to get it
cutting just how I wanted without having to fiddle with the blade angle.
I couldn’t really separate the cabinet scraper from the Stanley for results,
both were equally up to the task. Such a simple tool, and yet so effective.
Both these planes do their job very well. The cabinet scraper has one or two
improvements over the Stanley, but whether enough to justify the price
difference will really come down to the individual. If you’re new to cabinet
scrapers than I think the anti-snipe design of the sole could really make it
worthwhile. It is heavier though, which might be a disadvantage over long
scraping sessions. The scraper plane is a super tool; the blade bow option gives
it a real edge over the L-N, but still with the thicker blade available if you
prefer. Personally the rear tote design means I’ll be sticking with my
slightly less user-friendly model from Maine, but if you can handle the Veritas
(groan), then, dare I say it, I think it‘s the better
tool.  On
which controversial note… 
Cabinet Scraper £33.50
Scraping Plane £111.75 Optional
A2 blade £19.51
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