upgrade your files

[fast67ford]

Hey great idea! Can I ask one thing? I see here buying the putty knives, heating the blade and pulling it out. What are you guys doing when you put the file into the handle? Heating the file end and driving it in? Or driving it in cold with a dead blow? Or did you center drill it and drive in, Looks great and right up my alley on cost!

Thanks Bob in Oregon!

As long as the tang isn't super big like on some 12" files they just tap right on like a champ

 

[llarson]

Went to town yesterday, got some of the scrapers, wiggled the handles off the blades [cold]; now I have some really nice affordable file handles, and I can hang them up instead of laying on a tray. Thank you a bunch of times. Larry

 

[hman]

As promised (and especially for Bob in Oregon) here are my results with several more files.

1. The slot in the putty knife/scraper handles is kinda narrow, and I had trouble getting the file tangs to start. Tried grinding small bevels on the ends of the tangs, and had no problem inserting the files into the handles. Holding the files horizontally in the vise and using a soft hammer on the handle seemed to give the best control/straightness.

2. Tried a largish rasp, about 1/4" thick, and (more or less as expected) it split the handle at the end of the slot. Heated the file tang with a propane torch and hand-pressed on the handle. Easy! The yellow plastic of these handles is pretty low melting, so you don't need a huge amount of heat. Would probably work just as well with thinner files.

- John Herrmann

 

[donthack]

Have a bucket of old files from my grandfather, most have come back since I started file carding them. This my free my favorities and make nice wall decorations! Hello dollar store.

 

[gcd48]

Great Idea