Arno Burnishers

There are a lot of burnishers available, but we have long preferred the French-made Arno for preparing our card scrapers and the blades for our scraper planes.

The burnisher has two solid carbide rods for turning a hook. The round rod is ideal for turning a hook on scrapers with a typical hardness in the Rockwell (c) range of 40 to 51.

The pointed rod is used when the round rod won’t turn a hook because of the hardness of the steel. The pointed rod focuses your downward pressure on a single point and can turn a hook on the hardest scrapers. (Note the pointed rod is a little too aggressive for use on typical scrapers.)

The rods are mounted in a no-frills aluminum handle that is thoughtfully designed. The handle has a cross-guard, much like the guard on a sword. It prevents the tool from slipping forward off the tool, sending your knuckles against the scraper.

The carbide rods are angled for turning a typical hook. So you simply hold the handle horizontal to the floor and the geometry of the handle does the tilting for you. You can, of course, tilt the handle a little to produce a different hook.

Finally, the burnisher has a hang hole and comes with a sewn leather case to protect it from getting covered in metal filings and sharpening swarf.

As a nice detail, these burnishers are laser-etched with the Crucible logo to match your Crucible card scraper.

For details on how to sharpen a card scraper with the Arno, click here.