Thread: New tools

Man that a nice stack of tools and tool making steel. Those things are crazy hard to come up with around here.

Some one ground the files to use as scrapers. I recently bought a toolbox that contained a bunch of files, not like yours, but a dozen or so. It also had a triangular file with the teeth ground off and welded to a round piece of steel pipe for a handle.

It is an excellent scraper, with 3 sharp edges, had a wad of masking tape covering half the 4-inch blade, so you can choke up on it, the edges are sharp and will cut you. It will make a nice scraper for horn scale shaping. Sharpened up nicely on a diamond plate and buffer.

I soaked the files in hot water for a few minutes, I have a sink in my shop next to the water heater, so my water is hot. Then soak for an hour or so in simple green to remove much of the oil, grease, and dirt. Rinse in hot water and scrub with a stiff brush to remove any loose rust and crud. A good cleaning allows the vinegar to get to the metal and rust, other wise you are fighting that coating.

Then into vinegar, I buy it at a restaurant supply in 2-gallon bottles. Then soak for about an hour. Remove and scrub with a stainless-steel toothbrush, in hot soapy water, (Dawn dish soap). This will remove all the lite rust and any remaining grease and gunk. It will also keep your vinegar cleaner and more potent.

Back into the vinegar to soak for another hour, and scrub in hot soapy water. This will remove 90% of the rust, any remaining will stay in overnight in the vinegar, then a scrubbing till clean. Occasionally I leave a heavy rusted one for a couple days.

Oil immediately, if you rinsed in hot water they dry quickly, I brush with Kroil then wipe with paper towels let dry over night then chalk with kid’s sidewalk chalk from the dollar store. Chalk works, I keep a stick in my file drawer, next to my card file. It also keeps metal from sticking in the teeth.

The trick is to remove the oil and dirt before you go into the vinegar, then a scrub after an hour in vinegar, removes most of the loose rust and allows the vinegar to get to the steel. I really cuts you soaking time and I think does a better job.

With cast iron you must be careful leaving in too long, (days) vinegar will eat cast iron and leave pitted. I clean up a lot of Stanley hand planes. I brush on a thin coat of “Howard Orange Oil, Feed & Wax”, (Home Depot). Get the thick one in the tall bottle, not the spray. If too thick, leave in the sun a few minutes it will soften up, contains a lot of bee’s wax. BTW, rub on a band saw blade with a paper towel to make it cut wood slicker.

Wipe and buff with paper towels. It will keep tools from rusting and leaves a nice finish on band and table saw tables, you don’t need much.

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One thing for sure, I bit off a lot more than I can chew!
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Spent 5 hours today working on the big files. First I went from the vinegar bath to a baking soda bath. Then I took each one and used a very nice brass bristled brush to clean the teeth on each file.
The rust came off easily. The problem was the "pins" embedded in the files teeth and other solid gunk that was caked on top.
From watching some videos I learned to take a brass rod and put a edge on the end and a golf ball for a handle on the other end. This was a form of a scraper.
The brass is soft enough that the file teeth form groves in the brass scraper that fit perfectly between the file teeth. By scraping with that brass scraper it removed the pins and the gunk plus did a very nice job of cleaning the file teeth gullets. Not the fastest method but very effective. Another video suggested using a large nail flattened on one end in the same way or using a 9mm brass cartridge with the primer out, a rod soldered into the primer hole to use as a handle and flattening the open end of the cartridge to use as the scraper end.
After all that was done the file was rinsed with water, shook off, then dipped into a large can of 170 proof waste alcohol that I picked up at a local distillery.
The alcohol dried off the files in a couple of minutes.
I completed about 35 big files today, 5 more were put back in the vinegar solution, 2 were a loss.

I did not oil the files because one of the videos made by a very experienced shop/machinist said to absolutely not do that and with regard to chalk he said to apply it just before using the file as a means to help prevent the "pins" from becoming embedded. I gotta listen to professional experience.

There was one file that surprised me, it was made by Atkins and was stamped "Silver Steel" ! Hmmmm.....

At the end of the day as I was putting the files away one of them had started to definitely rust all over! No makers mark on this file so I do not know what kind of steel it is made from but I put it back in the vinegar bath and tomorrow I will brush it, rinse it, dry it and then apply oil to that one file.

This is going to be a long journey.

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In my browsing of Youtube for video's on files I came across this very interesting one. It demonstrates how to make your own files!
I love this idea,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOw9WqMOHjA

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This is the guy who knows his stuff .....
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TKGghVTXoE

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This is how some rasps are handmade in France. A very good video of the process.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvr2nZeAfNc

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Doc was a knife maker. That is what all the blocks of wood were for. There were many more than what is in the picture. The wood is for the knife handles.
Doc was known for the beautiful handles on his knives. A few years ago he gave me most of his wood. Two great big garbage cans full!
It is hard to see in the pics but there are a few exceptional pieces in the lot.
Now I have to make a few knives, again, to use them up and make him proud.
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His son asked me if I could guess how many knives are in the house. I guessed at 300+. He said, no, more than 400. Most are fixed blade hunters.
I have no idea how they plan on disposing of them but I sure do not want the job.

If you hear of how they plan on disposing of them, please let us know if it were to be some sort of online auction or what not.

Originally Posted by ScottGoodman

If you hear of how they plan on disposing of them, please let us know if it were to be some sort of online auction or what not.

Hey Scott, That I will do.

FYI, most of the knives are made from 5160 steel.

Kroil is not like regular oil and will eat rust. After a lite coating of Kroil and letting it set a day or so, I clean with a card file, the Kroil loosens up any rust or pinning in the teeth. A pointed Exacto blade used backwards (flat spot in the direction of travel), works very well to dislodge pinning in fine files, and surprisingly takes just a minute to do each tooth, a set of head band magnifiers helps.

When I scrub the files with a fine stainless wire toothbrush, I go with the teeth like a file card, it does no good to go against the teeth it dulls them and ruins the wire brush.

I hose down the files with brake cleaner to clean and remove the Kroil and coat with chalk for storage.

Card files are indispensable, I have several and like the ones with the fine wire on one side and stiff brush on the other side. The brush is use after the steel card side, to clean rust and pinning from the teeth. It is surprising how much pinning can be removed with a card file, stubborn pinning will need to be picked out.

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Thanks for the response. I will give the kroil a test and the chalk afterwards a test. I had not thought of using brake cleaner. I will give that a try.

I use a card/brush with brass teeth. I dislike using a steel or stainless steel brush because of the possibility of dulling the teeth on the file.

To remove the pinning I am using a brass rod as I explained above. It works very well but I have to learn how to shape & maintain the end better. I can see a need for a pick of some sort for the really stubborn "pins". I swear that a few of these files have welding splatter on them. I am also surprised that some of the files have pits in a few spots.

I cleaned off about 40 more files today. Today was small files. Triangle, square, flat, round and some modified files. My speed is picking up as I learn to make my workspace better organized. I had been using the tailgate on my truck as a workbench but today I put a small anvil on the tailgate and it steadies the work so it is faster.

It would have been more files completed but the weather was so nice that I hopped on my motorcycle for awhile.