Woodworking

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[Answered]Is there a wood hard enough to regularly scrape aluminum? (feddit.de)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I’m sorry if this is not in the spirit of the community, but I figured my dad would know because of his experience woodworking, and I don’t want to ask him for obvious reasons. I’m happy to remove it if it doesn’t fit.

I have an aluminum herb grinder, that regularly gets jammed up with resin. I tend to use a regular (probably pine) food skewer to clean it off, because I don’t want metal shards coming off of the aluminum from a metal scraper or plastic pieces from a plastic scraper. The pine works okay, but I have to replace it regularly and it can’t get everything.

I know pine is probably one of the softest woods, but would a hard wood be significantly more durable if it were cut as thin as a skewer (4mm diameter round)? Would anything be both reasonably obtainable (I live in a place with frequently abandoned old furniture, if that would be a good source, or I can go to a lumber store) and more durable enough to be worth it?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yes almost any wood is harder than pine. Old furniture tends to be a lot of oak, at least in my country. Here's what I would do: find any piece of hardwood. You can use furniture but you will probably find it easier to get a small branch off a hardwood tree. Any tree that has leaves instead of needles will be hardwood ( Some wood nerds would object). Whittle a few skewers out of the wood but NOT the pith- Not the dead center of the branch. After it's whittled it will be dry within a day even if it's green still. Then I would hold it over a fire/ stove a bit. Don't burn it, but the heat will toughen the fibers. That's probably the best bet.

Sorry about your nice post getting vandalized by that shmuck. They're banned now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Thanks!