Best half round file?

[Brian.Evans]

I am working on a cutler's steady rest and I have my sides cut out in half round shapes. The radii are too steep for my 2" idler on my Craftsman. I chain drilled and them cut the piece with a band saw, which left a bunch of half crescent stubs. I don't have any other way to remove them but a half round file. Anyone have a favorite coarse half round file that removes material fairly quickly?

I wish I had a small wheel, that would do it very quickly and smoothly. Haha. Anyway, if someone has a better idea than filing, I'm all ears.

 

[synthesist]

***** thinks this one over hard *****

A nice sharp 8" Grobet Swiss Vallorbe Half-Round in OO (Extra coarse) or O (plain ol' coarse) would be my choice along with a 6 pack of something cold to restore you periodically. Expensive tools but worth EVERY penny IMHO.

Ambitious project to do by hand.

I might think about a 2" drum sander and bunch of different drums in a drill press to finish it up would also be the way I'd go.

Good luck with this.................. show us a pic or 3 when it's done.

Syn

 

[timgunn1962]

It wont help this time, but if I need a radius, I usually use a holesaw.

They are normally guided by the pilot drill, but if you cut a hole through a piece of scrap, remove the pilot drill and clamp the scrap to the piece you want to cut the radius in, where you want to cut it, the outside of the holesaw will be guided by the hole in the scrap piece and you can keep going through the workpiece.

Maximum depth of cut is usually about 1 1/2" before the core bottoms out.

It's not precision engineering and it needs cleaning up with a file, but it's usually less effort than chain drilling.