Best File Handle?

[Kenstone1]

Or, hear me out, just buy a good chipping hammer and you're set for life on chipping hammers.

If I go into a shop and see they have home made tools out of old files, especially common/cheap tools like a chipping hammer, I automatically have learned something about that shop. It just looks flat out unprofessional and reeks of cheap Charlie. They may be the best shop in the hemisphere, but if they can't spend $20 on a chipping hammer or whatever, I know they're going to cut corners in other places and I don't know where.

This is clearly one of the instances where the home shop with unlimited time for free wins, where if you are making money with your tools you cannot justify using worn out, broken tools.

You also are never going to convince me that a file card is somehow wearing out files? They've been used for DECADES and this is literally the first time I am hearing about it. Every machine shop I have ever been in has had a file card hanging somewhere on the tool bench.

You do you, but I'm going to continue throwing out broken/dull tools and making money with new, sharp tools.

OK, you do you
Keep bloviating about your "professional" shop, just stop quoting/using MY posts for your rants.

I'm happy working along as a "Cheap Charlie" in retirement, my "tinkering" has gotten me 2 U.S. patents along the way in my working career, and I have made many many 1 off specialty tools to date.
I have to wonder how an efficient shop with all professional tools, none modified, can make any money with you wasting time posting on GJ?
Take the final word as I know you will, I'll be adding you to my ignore now.
jmo,

 

[dr_clyde]

OK, you do you
Keep bloviating about your "professional" shop, just stop quoting/using MY posts for your rants.

I'm happy working along as a "Cheap Charlie" in retirement, my "tinkering" has gotten me 2 U.S. patents along the way in my working career, and I have made many many 1 off specialty tools to date.
I have to wonder how an efficient shop with all professional tools, none modified, can make any money with the you wasting time posting on GJ?
Take the final word as I know you will, I'll be adding you to my ignore now.
jmo,

Clearly I have touched a nerve, wasn't really intending to "bloviate". Mostly I'm just fascinated by the apparent lack of respect for time as a resource on this board. Retirement allows you to take and do things that us working stiffs can't really justify the time for. There are a LOT of retirees on this board, and they seem to forget that in a busy setting you can't afford to take time to turn old files into tools or worry about sharpening something that we keep in the tool crib so guys can get back to work.

I never claimed to not modify anything. I modify stuff all the time. I try very hard to not re-invent the wheel, though. I wouldn't spend time making things that can be purchased off the shelf for less than I'd have into making one.

Congratulations on your patents, that's really cool. I don't really have the knack for inventing things, I just typically make things to print. The mind of the inventor is not the same as the mind of us production folks, and that's ok.

I can take the time to goof around on GJ during the day because we do things like take breaks, eat lunch and I can participate here and there. Plus, the guys out on the floor are making the money, I'm just riding the desk a lot these days quoting and doing email. Perks of owning the joint, I suppose. I make up for it on the evenings and weekends when the guys are at home and I'm finishing up a project or working on a last minute job for a client.

Bummer you won't keep in touch. Sorry we couldn't see eye to eye on this one.

 

[RTM]

Just curious, how are you re-sharpening them? I assume chemically?

I send mine to https://boggstool.com/

they claim a water jet type process.

I learned about them from a one man shop making exotic wood planes with 1/4” thick blades in the mid 2000s. He was sending the new files there because he felt they performed better.
I know the current Nicholson I get at HD does not perform as well as my older resharpened ones for sharoening hand saws.

I sent Macgee towards them a few months back, he talked with owner about the process, and I have not heard from him since….. hmm, should I be worried?

 

[rlitman]

Or, hear me out, just buy a good chipping hammer and you're set for life on chipping hammers.

If I go into a shop and see they have home made tools out of old files, especially common/cheap tools like a chipping hammer, I automatically have learned something about that shop. It just looks flat out unprofessional and reeks of cheap charlie. They may be the best shop in the hemisphere, but if they can't spend $20 on a chipping hammer or whatever, I know they're going to cut corners in other places and I don't know where.

This is clearly one of the instances where the home shop with unlimited time for free wins, where if you are making money with your tools you cannot justify using worn out, broken tools.

You also are never going to convince me that a file card is somehow wearing out files? They've been used for DECADES and this is literally the first time I am hearing about it. Every machine shop I have ever been in has had a file card hanging somewhere on the tool bench.

You do you, but I'm going to continue throwing out broken/dull tools and making money with new, sharp tools.

I've mentioned the dangers of file cards in threads you were involved with before, so it's not the first time, but I do understand the differences in our views. I've got perhaps a hundred Swiss jewelers files that will never touch anything as hard as steel or as damaging as aluminum in their lives, and you can bet they'll also never see a file card, and they'll also all outlive me (assuming they're not left out to rust). Vallorbe doesn't make disposable ****.

I have "inexpensive" files set aside for work in steel and aluminum, and yeah, they're more of the disposable sort. I still wouldn't hit them with a file card, but then again, I don't really file aluminum, so my files don't need much in the way of cleaning.

As for home-made tools, calling them "flat our unprofessional" makes little sense to me. If a fabricator knows how to make a tool, let em. I've run into a number of jobs where I didn't have the right tool, and where making what I needed was faster than going to the store to buy it. Many of those tools still haunt my drawers, and the ones that do are at least as nice as any alternative I can buy.

However, I will say that file steel is a terrible idea for a chipping hammer. Heck, rebar might be better starting stock. But if you feel like forging files and some old bandsaw blades into pattern welded steel knives (BTDT), I wouldn't be calling out Cheap Charlie.

 

[Kenstone1]

I've mentioned the dangers of file cards in threads you were involved with before, so it's not the first time, but I do understand the differences in our views. I've got perhaps a hundred Swiss jewelers files that will never touch anything as hard as steel or as damaging as aluminum in their lives, and you can bet they'll also never see a file card, and they'll also all outlive me (assuming they're not left out to rust). Vallorbe doesn't make disposable ****.

I have "inexpensive" files set aside for work in steel and aluminum, and yeah, they're more of the disposable sort. I still wouldn't hit them with a file card, but then again, I don't really file aluminum, so my files don't need much in the way of cleaning.

As for home-made tools, calling them "flat our unprofessional" makes little sense to me. If a fabricator knows how to make a tool, let em. I've run into a number of jobs where I didn't have the right tool, and where making what I needed was faster than going to the store to buy it. Many of those tools still haunt my drawers, and the ones that do are at least as nice as any alternative I can buy.

However, I will say that file steel is a terrible idea for a chipping hammer. Heck, rebar might be better starting stock. But if you feel like forging files and some old bandsaw blades into pattern welded steel knives (BTDT), I wouldn't be calling out Cheap Charlie.

Yes, files are as varied as the uses for them and I'll confess to using a fine wired BRASS brush on some needle handled files.
Any file I have near my welding table will have the end ground at a chisel like angle to serve as a scraper for fluxcore spatter, again varying uses.
And clamping that file's mid-point with a vise grip turns it into "something" to chip off flux.
I suppose I could buy some anti-spatter spray but remember I'm the original "Cheap Charlie"
OP, sorry for the continuing drift,
.

 

[dr_clyde]

I should point out that I don’t consider all or even most homemade tools unprofessional. Nor do I consider modified or “hot rodded” tools a problem. You do what you need to go get the job done.

Most homemade tools I’ve run across are hack work. They’re poorly made, usually made out of whatever was laying around instead of the proper materials or whatever. I have no problem with how people spend their free time, and if they want to spend the evening making furniture out of old pallets or whatever, coolio. I’ve seen some beautiful and well made homemade tools, but they are the exception to the rule.

Where the argument breaks down is when people are on my clock and decide to make their own tools. I refuse to pay someone an hours wages plus the lost productivity to make what we can just order from the industrial supply for a few dollars and have it delivered. If it isn’t available for purchase, we NEED it NOW or whatever then sure. But it rarely makes sense to make what we can buy.

We take great pride in making excellent products for our customers. I’m sure with enough time and effort, we could make any tool we needed. But our time is better spent making our customers parts not making hammers and chisels, unless we need something custom.

I need a damn good reason to justify the time and energy spent to make my own tools, especially when I’m not nearly as good at it as actual toolmakers. I have a hydraulic surface grinder, heat treat equipment and nice measuring tools. But I buy 1-2-3 blocks from the industrial supply instead of making some. I may make some when I have a special need, or have a lot of spare time

BTW, I’ve made a few knives. I wouldn’t do it again. I did it for a class I was taking. I’m not as good as Wustohf and it took me days to make an inferior product. And I used 154CM cutlery grade stainless, heat treated and ground. Not an old file.

I’ve worked for a lot of cheapskates and I can’t stand tripping over dollars to save dimes. I promised myself when I had my own shop I wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of all the old misers I worked for. I won’t ever have hardware sorted into jam jars and heaps of junk everywhere because “there’s still good useful bits in there”.

 

[Grant Gunderson]

The people that think file cards damage files seem to be the same ones that try cutting with them on the back stroke.

 

[seber]

Just curious, how are you re-sharpening them? I assume chemically?

Just drop them in a tray of muriatic acid. for a few minutes.