The first scraping experiment

I had an old 9x20 lathe part sitting around, so I'm using it as a scraping experiment. This is the first attempt. I don't have the geometry of the scraper tip quite right, yet. I really wish I had a diamond wheel to grind with. Instead, I'm working it by hand using a diamond hone. It's hard to keep it from being a convex end that way and the middle is hard to get has sharp as the sides for some reason. It's very sharp, though. I don't need much pressure to scrape this cast iron at all. It's very flat now, but has some gouges. I'll work on the scraper a bit and then try again. I may even mess it up a bit first.

I'm also having trouble getting bright transfers from the surface plate. I'm going to pick up a roller tomorrow. Most of the advise I've seen said to roll the ink out. I tried spreading with a rag and by hand and it's hard to get it thick enough to mark, but not so thick it marks everything. I can get it thin enough, but it's hard to see the markings sometimes.

It looks nicer in person than in the picture. The picture shows every flaw. But, it looks almost like real hand scraping.