Many of us came to woodturning by way of 'flat work' and had used cabinet scrapers on a relatively soft material. Also many of us came from the machine shop and had used hand scrapers on a relatively hard material. The softer wood required a small angle edge tool, the harder metal a large supporting edge angle, but both scraped not cut. The woodworker might follow his cuts with scraping then sanding & buffing, the metal worker by lapping & polishing, but both were abrasions.
Furniture and metal craftsmen are likely to consider a scraper to be a fine sensitive tool used to smooth & flatten the inevitable imperfections of _cutting. Not so for many woodturners. Some will consider my statement as heresy. Don't we all 'know' that a proper _cut will produce a superior turned surface? Well sometimes, as in hollowing end grain or gouging out a bowl's insides, but right or wrong, I'm musing about _finish scraping.
YMMV, but a timeworn analogy that explains my concept of cutting vs scraping: Carving roast beef on a board with a carving knife blade held relatively parallel to the roast is cutting --- cleaning up the grease and scraps off the board with the blade relatively perpendicular is scraping. In neither is the bevel really riding; it wouldn't cut. The same tool was used, but with different presentations. The former produces large thick slices of meat, the latter wisps of garbage, but I think the scraped board is left smoother than the cut roast.
I had these misguided thoughts while learning to spot scrape an old lathe bed somebody (not me ,G,) had used as an anvil. I scraped very thin layers off the high spots. The spots were revealed by very gently rubbing the bed with a piece of plate glass covered with a very thin coat of bluing . Finally after repeated rubbing & careful scraping the high spots were spread all over the bed resulting in smoother flatter ways. Mercifully, I'll spare you the details of my poor attempts at 'frosting' the ways. :)
Is that a little like what is or should be done with a woodturner's scraper? I mean after cutting with a gouge or skew and before sanding and buffing should we _very gently_ scrape off the high spots?
Scrapers look thick, flat and simple and we think they cost too much for what they are, but actually they are fine turning tools, more like a reamer than an axe. They are for paring off fine wisps or powder, not thick shavings. We shouldn't make do with files, glass shards or whatever is at hand for our scrapers. We don't dis our gouges like that.
For the sake of newbies I'm casting (not trolling) for your thoughts about scraping and I'm asking if there's a need to scrape after even the best cut in order to get the smoothest surface possible. Thanks for reading this far. Hope you figure out what I'm trying to say. Not everyone can agree nor should they. :)
Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter