- Joined
- Feb 17, 2008
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Like many others, I keep several files on my workbench. I have three that take care of most of my filing jobs. One for steel and iron, one for brass and aluminum, and a safe edge file for getting into corners. All are 6 inch mill bastard files. As my workspace is limited the three files took up a lot of valuable area of the bench. So a 1/2 X 1-1/4 X 5 inch piece of aluminum got three 3/16 X 7/8 inch slots cut in it. The slots were beveled with a countersink so the files could drop in easily. It was mounted on the edge of the workbench ( really and old cast iron table saw) in an out of the way area.
While I was at it, I painted the file handles. I had been marking the steel file with a few dots of paint near the tang, but this meant that I really had to look at the files to tell which was which. Now it easy to tell which file is for what. The black handle is for steel, the yellow is for soft metals and the white is the safe edge file which has the teeth on one side and one edge ground off. I like the Nicholson file handles. They fit my hand and come with several inserts to fit different size files. Since file handles are necessary we might as well have good ones. We all do have file handles don't we? stickpoke
While I was at it, I painted the file handles. I had been marking the steel file with a few dots of paint near the tang, but this meant that I really had to look at the files to tell which was which. Now it easy to tell which file is for what. The black handle is for steel, the yellow is for soft metals and the white is the safe edge file which has the teeth on one side and one edge ground off. I like the Nicholson file handles. They fit my hand and come with several inserts to fit different size files. Since file handles are necessary we might as well have good ones. We all do have file handles don't we? stickpoke