Let's face it  - scraping old gaskets of off heads and side covers absolutely sucks, for the most part. When I got started, I used single-edge razor blades, various gasket removers that for the most part did a 'meh' job, and even a variety of chisels, which did a better job at getting into tight spaces that you couldn't easily get to with those things, like a GL1000 oil cover - but then I discovered these: Lisle carbide scrapers.

At first I was a little pessimistic - they didn't seem very sharp, and there are a bunch of cautionary tales and warnings about how they can easily gouge up the soft aluminum on things like motorcycle heads, and I suppose they can, but they have been a BIG help getting stubborn gaskets off! 

These gaskets here on this CB500 cylinder head were pretty well baked on; and yes, it took some elbow grease and Goof-Off sticky stuff remover, a little brake cleaner to help soften them up and all three discs of Vivaldi's Greatest Hits to get them off, but they did the job!   

I really like me some Vivaldi while I'm in the garage; Mozart works too - I find classical music helps me focus. I also just discovered some awesome instrumental jazz that I've had on 'Repeat' for a while - Billy Strayhorn & Johnny Hodges "The Stanley Dance Sessions", which originally came out in the early Sixties, is Brilliant - Awesome stuff! I keep it right next to my Allman Brothers, Steely Dan and ZZ top and...

(Oh Gawd - don't get me started on music! Focus John, FOCUS!!) 

Anyway - The square, flat carbide edges of these things are super hard and can gouge aluminum surfaces if you go all 'gorilla' on them, but if you're careful to make sure the scraping surface is flat on the aluminum they do a great job! I was trying to find a picture of the results, the best I could find was this close-up of some valve seats, which look kind of gross (they cleaned up nice in my vapor blaster) but you can see the clean surface of the head itself; the brown areas are just discoloration.