Old and new Clickspring material, presented in a short clip format. A satellite to the main Clickspring channel. Be sure to visit ru-vid.com for the longform narrated videos.
I have read about making files and rasps by hand. To see it done, was a revelation. Rasps especially, benefit by the slight randomness of being hand made. I'll be trying to make files and rasps once I get my new forge fired up. Not just for fun and education, but to use. I mostly work in wood, but putter with metal, welding and forging. I find all your work, beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
Modern hacksaw blades are one of the most wonderful tools we have - Not long ago they would constantly brake! Yesterday I cut out a piece that was 40x16x90mm from a 40x40 bar of steel. It was fast and uneventful, and again made me really appreciate hacksaws! I think the modern hacksaw has replaced what the cold chisel used to do in a workshop.
I expect it's lead or a lead alloy. That's the traditional surface for cutting teeth on a file blank. It has the requisite mass to be an anvil, yet is soft enough not to blunt the teeth you have so laboriously made on the first side when you flip the blank over to cut the other side.
There is something to be said for the question "But why, when you can buy", easy answer "Because I chose to and in that I learn something. That is why".
The context here is making and using period correct tools for his Antikythera reproduction project. Sure, it'd be easier to use Swiss needle files and off-the-shelf hacksaw blades and jeweller's piercing saw blades (and a bench top lathe and milling machine as well), but the idea is to gain insight into how the original object would have been made.
Ive been doing a lot of hand scraping lately made a 500mm x 65mm camelback style straight edge from a lump of scrap cast iron and now working on a 300mm x 300mm surface plate for lapping in the future. Something very satisfying about achieving micron accuracy with only hand tools. Out of interest what easily available steel would be suitable for files. Im in qld and find it hard to source speciality steels without having to buy 6mtr lenghts etc. great work again mate
O1 is a decent hardenable steel. 1095, and 5160 (the stuff they make vehicle spring out of) are also both good steels if you need something hard and tough.
Watch Chris’s other channel (“Clickspring”) and you’ll see what he uses. Ordinary mild steel, case-hardened to become high-carbon, but he shows how to do it. The whole channel is a wonderful compendium of skills and techniques.
Chris, Always amazing. And seemingly did not really take an extraordinary amount of time. No compromises you have exactly what you wanted and need. Thanks for another GREAT VIDEO.
In the seventies as a journeyman locksmith the need for custom springs was a constant, day to day. Next on that list was files. Working with dull files became a way of life. Thanks Chris, for your insight and ingenuity. 👍💪🤙
I'm always amazed by your work! I was just talking earlier about how our ancestors' technological limitations bred some unthinkable creativity. The inverse of today's world where we have near infinite ability to create, but not as much "cleverness"
I have a Lodge Sportsman's Grill too! I cook steaks with mine. LOL. You make it look easy and like, Oh just do this and you can do it too. But I suspect its not as easy as that.
I'm never going to be making anything like that. I have neither the patience, fortitude or skills. I'll just fork out for some factory made ones. How you manage to cut the file teeth so evenly knocks me out. Lovely job.
The channel "Primitive Technology" started out by taking a stone roughly shaped like an axehead and grinding it against other rocks to give it a sharpened edge. He then used it to start crudely shaping wood for other tools.
Is it typical for a file to get tempered after hardening? I see that done with knives and chisels and cutting edges to make them less brittle, but always figured files needed be harder than that. I mean, store-bought files are very brittle in my experience.
Mostly it's the tang being tempered. The saw back might get tempered a bit too, just enough to make the saw tougher while leaving the teeth as hard as possible. Usually this involves something like quenching the teeth alone and letting the material behind cool much more slowly.
I complain in video games when the prerequisite tools I need to make a particular item break or wear out and I have to make a new ones. But typically, I can just pop open the appropriate crafting interface and bang a handful out in short order. The same kind of problem in real life, particularly the ancient world, would have been a decent setback. Such a neat process though!
There were toolmakers and blacksmiths back then. If you were not the lone blacksmith. Youd go take him some horse shoes and your old files and get some new ones.
