(click on any image to a see larger view)
Mitch and I had been talking about backscratchers. We decided to work together on them.
We'd seen those fancy wood backscratchers at the store and we'd even seen the metal ones that you can use to make a backscratcher but we wanted to make one with woodturning in it.
First I assembled my materials. I started with a 1" x 1" x 18" piece of cherry and then two pieces of 2" x 3" x 3/4" cherry.
I used the Titebond to glue the two pieces of cherry together to make one 2" x 3" x 1 1/2". This assembly will become the scratcher head.
Next I mounted the spindle stock on my lathe. I used a small drive spur in the headstock and my standard live center in the tailstock.
The first turning operation is to turn the blank round. I used my spindle rouging gouge.
I'm going to connect the spindle to the back scratcher head with a mortise and tenon joint. I'm going to use 3/8" so I've located my 3/8" drill and am using it to set my calipers.
Now I am starting to form the tenon which will connect the spindle to the back scratcher head.
The tenon is now formed and measured to the correct size. The extra wood attached to the live center will be cut away with a backsaw.
Now I'm shaping the handle. I've turned the section nearest to the head to be thin and have left the hand hold a bit thicker. You can see that I've added some decoration by burning in some lines created by laying my skew on it's side.
Now I'm shaping the end of the handle with a simple one sided bead. You can also see that I have plenty of left over wood. I could have started with a 15" blank and still had plenty of working space.
I've now removed my handle from the lathe and cut off the extra stock at the tenon. Now I'm marking the length of the tenon on the side of the head. I want to make sure that I've got the grain of the wood running parallel so that its all in the same direction.
Now on the end grain, I'm locating center and passing my mark from the prevous step around the blank to ensure that the mortise in the right location.
You can now see that my mortise location is ready to be drilled.
Now I'm marking the length of the tenon on my drill and using inexpensive blue painters tape as my marker.
All set up on the drill press to drill the mortise.
Here I'm doing a dry fit to make sure everything fits properly.
Now I'm drawing the side view of the back scratcher. I want it to meet the spindle with no overhang.
Now I've drawn in the top view in preparation to cut on the bandsaw.
I've now cut the head out on the bandsaw. This is the side view.
Here is the top view after cutting on the bandsaw. It's a bit rough but we have some clean-up and sanding to do still.
I'm using a drum sander insert on my drill press to clean up the head of the back scratcher.
Here is my back scratcher after gluing the handle and head together. I've got a bit more sanding work to do before I'm happy enough with it to apply some tung oil finish.
In further discussions with Mitch, he had some additional learnings to share.
Mitch used the bandsaw to cut the fingers and never rounded them over. He would lift the handle up high when cutting the fingers so as not to cut too deeply into the bottom of the scratcher.
He made eight of them and learned a lot and made some improvement in each succeding scratcher.
The enclosed is of most of the ones I made and the bottom one is the one I liked the best because it is lighter, narrower and the fingers pointier. At first I thought wider was better but it is the opposite.
One thing that is the most important to a good scratcher is making sure the tang area where the scratcher and handle join is not too high. If it is this rubs on your back when scratching down on your back and doesn't let the fingers scratch, it just rubs.
For finish, Mitch used 4 or 5 coats of lacquer on his back scratches.
As you can also see from this picture, Mitch has now started working on a new project, a handheld mirror similar to those turned by John Lucas. There are lots of new learnings to be had.
Now it's your turn!
