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Good sources for rasps and files

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Good sources for rasps and files

#1

Good sources for rasps and files

Christopher Schwarz

>Bill's earlier posts about fairing and smoothing sharp inside curves nudged me to blather a bit about rasps, some vintage and some of the sweet sweet French Aurious that have recently arrived.

In the last couple years I've been getting deeply into rasps and files after years of thinking they were cheating. I was always going for the shaving tool (plane, spokeshave) when it would have been much more efficient and effective to use a rasp.

Good cabinets rasps are astonishing instruments to use. The big ones (12" and 14") have a weight and presense that holds and steadies them in the cut. And best of all, rasps allow you to to easily shape things that are impossible with power tools and difficult for tools with blades. Wide chamfers, gentle curves, deep chamfers, sharp turns in curved material. If you can think it, it's generally possible for a rasp.

Problem is, most of the rasps I see at the fleas are worn out (though some you can send to Boggs for resharpening).

So meeting Slav Jelesijevich at a Chicago-area tool meet was like a major revelation. Slav, a cabinetmaker trained by Maurice Fraser in New York, finds boxes and boxes of high-quality rasps that have never been used before. These tools are of astonishing quality and are cheaper than new rasps. And are available in large and small sizes you can't get anymore. And in different cuts (bastard, second and smooth).

Call Slav up and tell him what kind of work you do. He'll hook you up with what you need and will tell you as much as you ever wanted to know about rasps and files. Every time I talk to him I pick up something new.

Slav: 312-455-0430 or lunytools@aol.com

The other thing I heartily recommend is that you check out the Auriou rasps that Joel carries at Tools for Working Wood (also I think Highland Hardware has some of them).

These are really special tools -- the Lie-Nielsen of rasps. Hand made. Smooth-cutting. Pricey. I've got two of them and am likely to save up for some more. And like the vintage tools, the Aurious are available in a wide variety of grains (really coarse to really fine) and sizes.

After years of having few choices in the rasp department, we just got a whole lot more.

Usual disclaimers. No financial interest etc.

Chris


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Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#2

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

Skip in Falls Church

>I bought an aluminum rasp from Slav at the Patina tool auction in MD last year. He said it's really a double cut float - as I recall. Whatever it is, it really does a great job - it cuts fast and leaves a fairly smooth surface. It's become my "go to" rasp when I need to do most of my rasping.

Skip

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#3

Yes

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Great tools. Locally, the fleas and garage sales are pretty decent. I've picked up two pristine, never apparently used Nicholson rasps, 8" in the last couple of years, and quite a few others in less impressive, but still sharp and usable shape.

This is not to denigrate the Auriou rasps, pictures of which in Joel's catalog are rather smeared now from all the drool that's dripped on them, and it's good to hear of this new source for rasps.

I'd like to put in a plug for an often-maligned tool: the four-in-hand or shoe rasp. This tool, for those not familiar with it, is a modified half-round tool, retangular in plan (no tang for mounting a handle), with rasp teeth on one end and file on the other. There are pretty bad ones out there, but the good ones are fine-toothed, and are useful for not too large, not too radical curves. Once you've got the shape roughed out, flipping the tool around to the file end results in getting to a pretty decent smoothness. I don't think I've paid over 50 cents at garage sales for any of the four I own.

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#4

Article...

Tony - Memphis

>That reminds me, I just read this article....

Rasping and filing is fun! My first experience was making cabriole legs at a class with Phil Lowe. I took a class on chair making last year and we used them even more. So I've really gained a fondness for them. I grab them for all sorts of other tasks now.

Oh, for reference...(I'll point it out if Chris can't...)

Popular Woodworking #144 (November 2004)

page 73.

Good article..good issue actually. The queen anne table is a good rasping project!

Try 'em, you'll like 'em! Kind of like the first time you figure out how to use a scraper. Hey...this is sweeeet!

Tony

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#5

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Skip...Was he selling indoors on the auction tools side about half way up the floor? If we are talking about the same guy he had a massive variety of files of all sorts. I dropped a few bucks there too.JR

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#6

Re: Good sources for rasps and files *LINK*

Bob Smalser, Seabeck, WA

>Thanks for the contact....I can always use more rasps and files:


Using Rasps

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#7

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

Skip in Falls Church

>That was the guy - he really did have a great selection. He also seemed to really know a lot about them. If he's there again this year I plan on looking his selection over a bit better. I wasn't actually planning on buying the aluminum rasp - I had my eye on another one that I did buy. But he was very insistant that the aluminum rasp was really great - so I bought it. And he was right.

Skip

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#8

Jim in Burlington Ont.

Nobody mentioned

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>Am I the only guy that uses metal files on wood? There's a huge assortment of round files out there no longer any good for metal but work great on wood.

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#9

Re: Nobody mentioned

Bob Smalser, Seabeck, WA

>No....look at my articles....I use flea market Navy Yard machinist files extensively.

The cut wood long after they'll no longer cut steel well.

All of $.50 to 3 bucks each, too.

Saves a whole lot of sanding.

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#10

Re: Nobody mentioned

Ray Browne

>Do you find these to be as effective as the Nicholson #50 cabinet rasps that cost about 50 dollars? I'm looking to get into using better rasps but unsure as to what to buy, main purpose would be chamfering edges, rounding corners, amybe the occasional shaping. Had heard rave reviews on the Nicholson cabinetmaker's rasp and figured that was what to get.

-Ray

Re: Good sources for rasps and files

#11

Re: Nobody mentioned

William Duffield on the Cohansey

>Your question is like asking whether a smoother works more effectively than a scrub, or 600 grit paper is more effective than 80 grit. In rasps and files, for effective work, you need a succession of files and rasps and scrapers. Depending on the scale of the work, I always start with a #50 or #49, and after I get the shape right, I refine the surface with a succession of files, finishing up with a flat or curved card scraper.

As to using a worn out file for shaping wood, after retiring it from the metal bench, to me that makes as much sense as using a dull plane, or using worn out sandpaper instead of going to the next finer grit and fresh paper. I would recommend against the practice. I try to keep the files I use on metal separate from the files I use on wood, although sharp, new files orignally sold for metal work are effective on wood.

Also, if you use a file on oak or other wood with high tannin content after using it on ferrous metals, when you wet the wood to raise the grain, the small filings will leave a black spot every place one is left imbedded in the wood.

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