I need a decent Wood Rasp?

[JWC86]

Searched but didn’t find much.
I’m not a wood guy at all but I have a couple of screwdriver restorations coming up that will require a small amount of wood working. Would like to pick up a rasp but I have no idea what is good and what’s junk?
Are there a couple “go to” brands for wood rasps?
Thanks

 

[McFarmer]

If I needed one I’d go to a antique mall and pick one up for a few bucks. Any old one that looks like it has sharp teeth would be a good bet.

 

[neophyte]

The best wood rasps have somewhat irregularly cut teeth.
The older nicholson 49 and 50 “Patternmakers” rasps were quality, but that was before the rasp production got sent yo South America(Brazil I think) and the quality went to ****. Nicholson had a special Rasp Cutting machine that cut slightly irregular teeth, and either they fisn’t send it to South America, or the locals don’t know how to properly set the equipment up, or maybe don’t care to?
Most rasps with perfectly aligned teeth sort of ****, at least for wood if the wood is even halfway hard.

The best current rasps are either cut by hand, nowadays, or the rasps are machine made with a completely different tooth design than was used on older machine made rasps.

The best hand cut Rasps are made in France by either Liogier or Auriou.
With Liogier you can order direct from France, or purchase from several or more dealers in the USA.
Auriou rasps are sold thru specialty woodworking dealers in the USA like Lee Valley or Highland Hardware.
I’m not sure if either brand is really better than the other.
The rasps aren’t cheap.
Another source for hand cut rasps is ToolsForWorkingWood in NYC. They sell a house brand of rasps called “Gramercy”. The rasps are hand cut, made from surgical grade stainless steel in Pakistan, I presume by one of the makers of many makers surgical tools located in Pakistan, who presumably already made rasps.

There’s also Narex from the Czech Republic, whose rasps look like a step up from cheap machine made rasps, but not the quality of Gramercy, Auriou, or Liogier.
The price is a bit better.

for Machine made rasps, Vallorbe of Switzerland, makes a high quality machine cut rasp that is considered almost as good as a hand cut rasp, but the rasps are somewhat close in price to a hand cut rasp, and I think they have multiple patterns, so you have to figure out which ones are the “patternmaker” version(these are the good ones).

Corradi, an Italian file maker, also made a similar high quality rasp, but I’m not sure if there are any US sources other than for tiny rasps.

 

[Dumber than lumber]

If you have never used a Shinto Japanese style rasp you don't know what you are missing. Highly recommended and fun.

 

[Tools4Me]

They might be a bit expensive if you just want to make a couple wood screwdriver handles, but Kutzall carbide hand rasps are great, and they basically last forever. If they clog up with wood you hit them quickly with a propane torch until the wood chars a bit, and then you go back and forth across them a few times with a fine metal bristled brush and you are as good as new again.

USA made, and they usually do a 20% off discount each year around black friday (often their only promotion for the year) so your timing is about perfect if a carbide rasp will work for you.

I have a bunch of their structured carving burrs, several of their 4-1/2" extreme shaping wheels for my angle grinder, along with coarse and fine 8" half round wood rasps. I have been very happy with everything. I usually buy one or two items from them each year, when their sale comes around.

What I like most about carbide rasps in general, is they cut both ways, so you can shape the wood more quickly if it can handle you cutting in both directions, or you can more easily make sure you are cutting the correct direction in relation to the wood grain without having to flip the tool around or physically move around your workpiece so much.

Hand Stitched Rasps and Files for Wood Smoothing | Kutzall

Easily shape and smooth your projects quickly with Kutzall's hand-stiched rasps and files. Multi-directional cutting for sperior woodworking control. Buy now!

kutzall.com

 

[Downwindtracker 2]

A very course file works.

 

[RTM]

I like Iwasaki files. Less pricey than Nicholson's 49 or 50, and a really nice finish.

Iwasaki Carving Files

I have flat and curved ones.

What are you renovating that you think a rasp is the best tool?

Beware of cheap ones that are Really Prickly. The will remove lots of wood, but leave a crappy finish.

What are

 

[1cargarage]

MICROPLANE is a favorite of mine. I hardly ever touch a rasp anymore.



They cut super smooth and the little texture they leave behind is easily sanded smooth.

Features: coarse or fine tooth, multiple profiles, "blades/planes" snap in and out of the handle and are reversible, so you can push or pull.

They take a couple minutes to get used to, but they are THE WAY. I have carved numerous fully formed handles (individual finger grooves & thumb rests etc) out of figured bubinga with zero tear out and excellent results. Also, because they snap in and out of the handle, they're super easy to clean out if they do get clogged.

 

[seber]

MICROPLANE is a favorite of mine. I hardly ever touch a rasp anymore.



They cut super smooth and the little texture they leave behind is easily sanded smooth.

Features: coarse or fine tooth, multiple profiles, "blades/planes" snap in and out of the handle and are reversible, so you can push or pull.

They take a couple minutes to get used to, but they are THE WAY. I have carved numerous fully formed handles (individual finger grooves & thumb rests etc) out of figured bubinga with zero tear out and excellent results. Also, because they snap in and out of the handle, they're super easy to clean out if they do get clogged.

Looks like they are out of business. Every product is listed as "out of stock".

 

[RTM]

Looks like they are out of business. Every product is listed as "out of stock".

Or dealing with the same worldwide supply chain problem as everyone else

 

[MBfreak]

When sourcing rasps for a guitar neck renewal I found to my total surprise that Swedish file maker ÖBERG still sold wood rasps made in Sweden.
Their metal files were second to none until company ousourced their manufacturing.
The wood raspe are totally awesome. The teeth are " scattered "so they do not create peaks and troughs but a rathe smooth surface. And cut both alder and maple perfect!

 

[neophyte]

Looks like they are out of business. Every product is listed as "out of stock".

There are still items listed as “In Stock” on their website.
Also, Microplane is sort of a mainstay for both woodworking, and for kitchen use.( grating foods).
I doubt their going out of business, and If they were, the news would likely have spread.
It’s more likely they either shut doen production during the Coof, or they wound up with more orders than expected, from people cooking at home, snd doing woodworking etc. at home, and that that, plus possible temporary shutdown of production, plus a possible supply chain issues getting the particular steel they use, might have left them low on stock.