A burnisher is a hand tool used in woodworking for creating a burr on a card scraper.
[3] Purpose-manufactured burnishers are polished smooth, typically made from high speed steel (HSS) or cemented carbide,[4] and usually have wooden handles.
[4] Substitutes for shop-bought burnishers are often made with other common workshop items of hardened steels or cemented carbide, such as the back of a gouge, a bevel edged chisel, a nail punch, or an HSS drill bit.
Modern scrapers are typically manufactured from harder steels than in the past, and require burnishing with harder materials, making some traditional makeshift burnishers less effective on modern scrapers.
[4] Once the edges and faces of a card scraper has been filed or ground flat and square, the burnisher is repeatedly rubbed at a slight angle along the scraper's edges, creating a small burr.