Hi guys!👋 Do you know I make different things as well ? Check this video out, I'm so proud of the final result... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uql5K6ia3QE.html
Nice to see that there are a lot of people who know what a wire brush will do to a file. One of the first things I was taught as an apprentice was to avoid using a wire brush, clean the file with aluminium or brass by hand and never let files touch each other. Those files are knackered but may make a good scraper.
old files like that go straight into the forge and get turned into flint strikers, the forge blows all that crap off them and reforging them makes them better IMHO.
I have 2 pieces of PVC with a glued PVC caps at the end. I put acid and water in one to clean and etch my files. I put baking soda and water in the other one to neutralize the acid. I use a ton of files as I’m a gunsmith.
Taking a wire wheel to a file is the worst thing you can do to a file. If you use a brass or bronze wire wheel or any wire wheel that is very very soft, as it is far less harsh and will not make the files dull. It is best to either soak them in vinegar or muriatic acid, then rinse them off in a baking soda solution, to neutralize the acid. The acid dissolves any contaminates and metal debris that is in the cutting grooves and dissolves the rolled over areas of the files that makes them not work properly. That is how to properly rejuvenate and clean a file for further use. I hope this guy's method works well for more than just a few uses. If you want to properly repair nasty, rusty corroded and or dull files, the method I listed is the best practice. Interesting video, but definitely not the correct method
You can put them in acid to resharpen them, is one way. But I agree with you, if the files are dull, they will not cut, and all you will have after this video is some nice looking files that will not cut, and are useless.
@roblox tutorials I did not watch the handle part of the video after seeing the " restoration " of the files. It would have been a waste of time. But thanks for confirming my suspicions that the handles would be about like the file restoration, poorly, and improperly done.
Only for cleaning! The sequence should be as follows: 1. Chip and sand off solid gunk. 2. Wd 40. 3. Paint stripper/ degreaser. 4. Vinegar and salt. 5. Neutralise with soap/scouring powder.
When you round that wire wheel over them files and made them doll as hell those files won't cut anythingBut you did a good job cleaning them up They sure look good
Like a lot of of the other comments that you never wire brush, there are brushes made for that, a carding brush or a brass brush that’s not going to kill the sharpness of the file. Oh well we all learn from our mistakes.
Bummer the comments are all not great, but they confirmed what I thought - that you shouldn't wire wheel a file to clean it. I did also learn that you should store files separate from each other. So the video did help me in that way. Also it was entertaining. Thanks.
Every time the files were rubbed against each other I flinched. Whether I'm using my expensive Swiss cut gunsmithing files or my utility files they are NEVER allowed to touch another file. The only value to this video is to show what not to do to files.
Nice handles. Use rust remover instead for files that have a little rust. Wire brush only, don't use wire wheel, as it will dull the teeth somewhat. If it's really rusty, it's shot just get a new one and make something out of the old ones. A new file will be much sharper than your restored ones.
@@davidtruscello644 no, restoring is bringing back to origional condition to a certain degree. Files in a way are un-restorable unless you get a new old stock with some surface rust on the tang or something
@@LegoMan-cz4mn I have seen someone use ferric chloride to make the file sharp again and it worked pretty well. It won't work if the teeth are crushed , but if they are just dull it will give your file a longer useful life
If you use a rotary brush on timber files all you will do is flatten the teeth out. Get yourself a large steel `cauldron` preferably with a handle on each side. Put in a coffee mugs worth of soda crystals. Put in your files, and any other tools, fill with water, make sure you dont get wooden handles wet, and bring to simmer. To save gas switch off for 10/15 minutes then simmer again, just keep the water hot. Keep you hob/extractor on to remove fumes. Give it an hour then use some tongs to take the tools out. As they are hot they will dry very quickly on their own thereby avoiding any surface rust due to slow evaporation. Make sure all surfaces are exposed to the air. They dry in minutes. Remember steel is porous. The hot soda crystal `soup` will also sharpen the file teeth. Job done!
To recondition a file youd need to anneal it, place it on a copper saddled anvil, recut the teeth with a file chisel, harden, temper, soak in a mild acidic to remove scale....
A clean ,and then a soak in sulfuric acid restores The rules edge been doing it a life time its an old pioneer skill when files we're scarce.even in war times.
What madness! Files can only be cleaned with brass brushes! And then with the steel brush on the bench grinder. The files are guaranteed to be even more blunt than before.
Not necessarily, I bought a bunch of files long time ago and have used just a few, the rest went mildly rusty without being used once. I would be happy to get rid of the rust.
@@redangrybird7564 You could just file something with them. Won't remove rust from the brand at the bottom but that depends on how pretty/vs functional you want your tools.
Yes you messed up the teeth on them. I don't understand why people are so harsh about it. You made a bad decision to fix something without proper research. Just get some more old files and try again. Best of luck to you.
I'll mention a very good technique for cleaning pills out of the the teeth of a file while in use, taught by a blind machinist to a forum user somewhere, and thence to me. Take a large soft iron (or steel, dunno what you'd find these days) nail and smash it thinner and flatter at one end, to make a flat spoon blade, which you then file across the end to make a chisel edge. This you use as a tiny slick, pushing it across the file in parallel to the teeth. Teeth are cut into it by the file, and the stuff clogging the file is scooped out. I've done the same with aluminium.
I agree with the rest of the comments. Files are clean but not sharp. The way the file slides across the demo tells us that. I have heard but never tried is to soak cleaned and decreased files in sulfuric (battery) acid until the sides of the teeth are dissolved away and resulting in a sharpened file. After acid treatment the files have to be rinsed in a baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) solution to neutralize the acid. Then they have to be rinsed in clean water then dried and stored properly.
just read about 10 comments so i'll come to your defense. Others may do this way or the always heard don't do this or that but I watched the video and your method obviously works. The detail is clear in the close-up of the re-bar. I thought the video was well done. Carry on.
@@davidtruscello644 I think most people call that a repair, not a restoration unless it is returned completely back to factory new original condition. And if it is modernized in any way then it would be a renovation.
Uses a high speed hardened wire wheel on his files.... doesn't understand why they don't work right anymore. This isn't a file restoration, it's a file destruction.
Now you have clean blunt files. You can get a bit more life out of files by letting them soak in phosphoric acid, but that will only work a few times..
Any acid will work. A weak acid like cleaning vinegar is a safe choice. Let them soak for 6-8 hours in that and it will really sharpen up the teeth. Gotta remove all oils prior to soaking for best results. Then rinse them with hot water and some baking soda to neutralize the acid. After they dry hit em with some PB Blaster to prevent rusting.
I'm damned impressed by your small work space. Making and restoring old files is an art in itself. Learn what you can from good criticism, not these bunch of buggers. I just subscribed.
I'm gonna be fair and watch the rest of this, but I'm one minute into the video and I'm saying to myself "He'll restore these files to good condition by first rubbing them around on each other?" And from the comments I see, he also wire brushes them? How does he treat his other edged tools, drag them along the floor? For the record, a file card (not that I see one in this video) is not used like a wire brush. The bristles have sharpened ends designed pick out the gullet of the teeth without dragging across the cutting edge. The card must be positioned at right angles to the teeth and moved sideways to maintain that angle of attack. On the other hand, I do like his technique for making up a custom trough for the job, though. I'll use the idea!
WOW! Just about everything I was taught not to do with a file. Why would you clatter them all together, a definite way to blunt your files! Why wouldn't you use a brass wire brush? Horrendous!
Very true. Wire wheels and files don't mix. If you don't believe it, try the wire wheel on a brand new file. Woops! "Fire up the old Rambler, Ma, We're headed back to the hardware store for another goddamn file!
I don't know why this video rubbed so many people up the wrong way. Yes his thinking is flawed, but instead of pointing out his shortcomings in a constructive and fruitful manner yall bash on him. Typical internet keyboard warriors. Good on you my man and hopefully your future projects are better thought out.
You did a lot of work there. Lye mixed in water would have cleaned those files without the use of the wire wheel. Once the teeth are rounded over, you need a new file no matter how nice it looks.
In the phlippines the BOLO/MACHETE makers stuff some scrap plastic(baggie scrap etc) in the hole in the handles and put the Hot file tang into it..works as glue. no cost either..
to all who piss about using steel wire brush to clean files check out file card , it is a steel wire brush with short bristles designed to clean files I personally wouldn`t use a wire wheel ( because of flying wires ) but to say using a steel wire brush to clean a file would dull it is like saying using a file on steel would dull it and you were right in saying letting them slide around each other would damage them but maybe he didn`t know as he probably didn`t know you should never heat a file even the tang end as this loses the heat treatment (temper) making it easier to break yes it was not a sharpening restoration as you really cannot sharpen a file best you can do is clean them ( if you really think you can sharpen files I will gladly give you one of mine that are dull as the flat side of glass CANNOT be done you can clean or replace but you cannot sharpen files , you would have to soften the file to even attempt it then try to temper it back to original hardness ,and yes I`ve seen the so called sharpen videos all they are doing is cleaning the file WHICH is what this guy done Worst he done is let them slide on each other and heated the end other than that job well done
Yes! why do you have the files rubbing against each other , My teacher told me that files "Hate each other . If a file is worn and blunt you might as well make a chisel out of it or some other tool . But they are pretty much useless for filing metal . Specially after treating them the way you did.
I love the careful measurement with a vernier then add, oh, I dunno, a quarter inch or so, perhaps, and then proceed to lose all the measurements anyway by turning the wood in the lathe.
To restore the FUNCTION to dull files, cap a piece of PVC pipe, stand the file on end in it and immerse them in muriatic acid found in the masonry section of the big box stores. Check each one from time to time as the acid eats away at the steel. You're looking for the shape of the teeth. Eventually, if the teeth don't have huge flats ( the shiny areas) where the points once were, you'll dissolve enough steel to restore some semblance of the original shape of the teeth. Do this outside. It seems to me that I never had rust in my shop until I sharpened a bunch of files this way. The fumes are unpleasant and worse, highly corrosive. If you must clear trapped aluminum from the teeth, use a hard steel pick applied between the teeth. Kill the acid with baking soda and water then oil the files. Part of a corn cob makes an elegant, quick, economical, and comfortable handle. Yee-Haw
I have tried making corncob handles a while ago, not even one of them turned out good, i just got mad and burned it all. Moral of the story, don't be me.
@@romuloarantes7820 I'm not sure what your idea is of a file handle that turned out good. I just nip off the tip of the cob to expose enough diameter of pith to let you drive in the tang. Drive it in. Just put the front end of the file against something solid and push the handle over the tang. Chop off the operator-side excess, whatever strikes you as too much handle. Use popcorn cobs for jeweler's files. A corncob handle isn't especially pretty unless you are into minimalism and economy. I guess you could sand away the fluffy exterior of the cob and oil it. That would be kind of nice looking but the plain cob is easy on the hands and won't let the tang poke your flesh. Say, you haven't been trying to use freshly cooked sweet corn cobs, have you?
@@markkoons7488 i used dried corn cobs, planted in my uncle's farm, what kept happening was that the interior never got hard and wood like, and after 2 days it would broke
@@romuloarantes7820 My experience was that the pith became kind of like a dried out marshmallow. I actually have only a few corncob handles. Those are imitations of ones I'd seen more than 60 years ago in farm sheds and the kits of people who were stoney-ass broke during the depression. In trying to imagine the failures you've experienced, I wonder whether you're trying to jam too much tang into too small a cob., something that might happen with a big rasp, a situation where you really do need a handle of some sort.
He seemed to only heat the top part of the handle. It is very unlikely that the hardness of the actual file was affected at all. Actually, all file handles are normalized from the manufacturer, which is why you can often see some coloring towards the base of the tang. As long as the blade didn't start to color, it is fine. They are still very dulled from the rest of the cleaning though
Lot's of good advice here about old files and the limits to restoration. I'd also add that you should have a heat sink of some kind if you're going to fit the files to the handles by heating with a torch. You'll draw temper in the lower half. Also, every time files contact each other, you're likely damaging them. Otherwise, good work and great to see folks interested in older tools instead of tossing them in the trash and going to the big box store.
Its impossible to restore a file, at the place i work we use them to fettle cast iron and we go through about twenty a day between 3 of us. Once theyre blunt. theyre blunt. Sorry m8 but you would be better off doing a vid on making handles.
ive dipped several dozen files in hydrochloric acid for a few hours, swirled in base solution, then scrubbed with a brash brush and simple green, then oiled with wd40. a year later no rust and the ones i've pulled out cut just fine. Maybe your company buys shitty files?
Its perfectly concievable that three people would use 20 files a day in a production workshop environment on metal. They may be cheaper files, but the more expensive probably dont last proportionally longer in that working context. Also, if a file cuts at 70 percent of its initial cut, it may be worth throwing out as the extra time to do the job is more costly in labour than to buy a new tool. Suffice to say, the business owners and workers will have optimised the costs in these instances.
You can restore a file. Although how you do that and the trouble it is and the the difficulty involved keeps us all from doing it. You basically anneal the file and then recut the teeth with a hammer and chisel then harden it again. But it isn't nearly as easy as it sounds. Not that it even sounds easy to do.
hello my friend first I want to congratulate you on the excellent content of your channel, congratulations on your work, I would like to give you a tip: to remove the rust you can also use the pure lemon juice, just let the soak tools in it for 12 hours, then remove and wash well under running water, dry well and throw on top wd let it dry a little in the sun and then just use it, a big hug from Brazil for you 👍
Nope, as a machinist I must disagree. Only if you start grinding your files really hard you probably could get some damage, but if you dont do it you will not damage them. I cant see how they would get dull just by touching, they have the same hardness and to you be able to break a teeth you need to bang on them quite hard (you will split it in half if you try) so... Nope.
Allah the Coriolis force can cause minute disturbances that given enough time will cause the touching files to go dull. That is why I store my files tang side towards the centre of the earth core. This can make travelling with files difficult, but I have found if stored within a Faraday cage the result is similar but the need to ground the cage makes long distant trips difficult as I only have 1000 ft of 000 grounding wire.
Soak old files in battery acid, leave them for a couple of hours then rinse them well, puts an edge back on them for a while. Old Army trick. Plus you should never store them all together in a heap!
They are the most strangest handles I have ever seen more like knobs sorry to say, but it's true with files you need long handles not thick and short like that.
Use a file card (it's a wire brush made to clean files) and a piece of copper or brass to clean out the grooves on the files. The copper or brass is used to push out the stubborn pieces of debris in the file grooves. I soak mine in muriatic acid, it works much faster than vinegar, which can take several days. The muriatic acid works for me in 3-4 hours or so in most cases. It could take more or less time depending on what shape the files are in to begin with. P.S. Like others have said, you do not want your files touching each other and never use a powered wire wheel to try to clean the files. All that does is dull them badly. P.S.S. When they are completely worn out, here's how to make new ones...Lol! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SOw9WqMOHjA.html
@@danielalamo2075, some sources sell an acid to soak a file in, claim to restore a cutting edge to the teeth. I have never used such, but would like to hear from some who have.
I think you need to call this video "How to make old files look nice but totally useless" not "restoration". The second you use a wire wheel on a file what cut it may have had will be completely gone. The edge on the teeth set make the cut on the file are very fine and a wire wheel simply dulls them instantly.
I don't know what those other guys were writi g in their replies,but I can tell you this if you use a wire wheel on a file it's DONE that won't cut anything after that.
I think he might be trying to restore his RU-vid image, because he certainly didn't restore the files to working sharpness, but just stuffed them up more. What a dork! ;D
