Its handle is long, intended to be grasped with two hands, allowing for considerable weight and leverage to be put upon the blade. This tool looks like the runt of the litter, but it belongs here, too. These knives are a near relation to the wallboard knives used in applying the plaster-like joint compound. Wider versions of this knife are often sold as a filling knife, and these tools can be purchased in a number of different widths, from one to four inches. It’s better suited to apply such thick or pasty materials as glazing compound, spackle, or other fillers. The difference is only a matter of weight: The lighter putty knife flexes more easily than the paint scraper. At first glance, it’s easy to confuse the putty knife with a narrow paint scraper. This is a tool that becomes easier to use with practice, so you may want to experiment and master the technique before trying to strip a piece that will end up at front and center in your home. Angle it slightly away from you, and push the scraper across the surface. Bow the blade a little with the pressure of your thumbs to prevent the corners from digging into the wood. The blade is used at a shallow angle to the surface being stripped, and the paper, paint, or other material peels up as the blade is advanced.Īnother way to use the paint scraper that is particularly useful when scraping a wood surface is by gripping the blade with both hands, pinching it between the middle and forefingers and thumb of each hand. Its uses are many, among them removing wallpaper or paint after they’ve been softened with heat, and it can be wielded in a grip similar to that you use to hold a screwdriver. The tool has a flat steel blade and a handle of wood, plastic, or metal. As its name suggests, it’s a scraper, too, used to remove old paint. For the purposes of this article, we’ll consider its more rough-and-ready relation, the tool generically known as the paint scraper. In cabinet and other fine finish work, the hand scraper-a flat piece of sheet metal also called a cabinet scraper-is an essential tool, but it is used almost exclusively in the workshop. Both the hand scraper and the plane are used to smooth surfaces, removing thin shavings. In a sense, the patriarch of this particular family is the hand scraper, which is a sort of simplified plane. The edges of blades vary, too, in the degree to which they are sharpened.

They resemble one another in that they have flat blades mounted on handles, but differ in that some are light and flexible, others stiffer and heavier.

I’ve lumped together, under a single heading, a family of tools that are used to perform many tasks.

Mount and blade tools