This past summer, for my birthday I purchased a set of scrapers and a burnishing rod. I played with them a bit when they came but wasn't really happy with the results. This week I started on a replacement table top for a coffee table I made for my daughter several years ago. It seems her new puppy liked the taste of red oak and chewed up a corner of the original too bad to repair. After gluing up the top, there was a small amount of glue squeeze out and a slight unevenness between two of the boards. I stared working with the scraper and still wasn't getting the type of shavings I thought I should get. I did a little searching on the internet and ran across a sharpening video from Fine Woodworking. I tried the technique and was pleasantly surprised by the results. My scraper work ten time better than it had before and I was very pleased with the results. I carefully scraped both sides and the surface is very smooth. I definitely will be using my scrapers more on future projects.
My question is do you need to sand the surface after scraping or does scraping leave a smoother surface for finishing than say 220 grit paper?