Cleaning/restoring files!

DR.BOOM

DR.BOOM

Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
255
What steps do you guys take to clean your files so they are always 100% ready. Sorry if there are other posts about this.
 
Umm are you talking about general maintenance during use or bringing old files back to life?

During use: files only cut one way, don't go back and forth. A file card or wire bristle bush is used every so often during use, or every few strokes for softer material. Regular old chalk rubbed into the file will help keep it from loading up as well. A light coat of oil every so often keeps the rust at bay. Learn to draw file properly, check out youtube for how-to videos.

For old files: if super rusty and really worn make a knife out of it! Depending on the file it may be decent, or it may be a letter opener. I heard of a place that chemically sharpens files for not much money, I think they were in SoCal. May be worth it for large files or if you have a lot of them. Buying craftsman files from sears is a good option, take 'em back when worn out for a new one!

Hope this helps. BTW, where in NorCal are you located?


-Xander
 
DR.BOOM said:
I am basically in Chico. Are you yourself in nor cal?
Click to expand...

As some would say I'm barely in NorCal. Stockton to be exact, 3 hours south of you. Most consider it central CA. Heart of the San Joaquin Valley.


-Xander

P.S. I found the place that does sharpening. Boggs tool in Paramount, CA. Boggstool.com
 
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I go through Stockton every few weeks on my way to Modesto. Any really good knife shops in the area you would recommend for my next time through?
 
Eh, the knife market here is so-so. Stockton Gun Exchange carries Case, rough rider, marbles, SOG, and remington along with a few other inexpensive brands. Outdoor Sportsman has CRKT, buck, bench made, kershaw, and some others. They have also been known to carry Snody every once in a while. R.E.I.has benchmade, gerber, leatherman, buck, and I think a few spyderco's.

Next time your through, maybe shoot me a PM and we'll grab a beer. Lots of bars here!


-xander
 
Ha it will be 3 years before I can legally grab a beer. Just recently turned 18.
 
Fair enough! Still feel free to shoot me a message when your through town, we'll shoot the breeze and have a coke.


-xander

P.S. to preserve bandwidth let's take this to email from here on out.
 
As the acid works it removes steel from both sides of the teeth. The teeth have no option but to come to a edge. Yes the acid is taking steel off the edge, but as the edge gets sharper it has less and less available steel to eat. When the tooth is sharp it only has a very thin area to sacrifice where both sides are exposing much more. It is kind of like etching damascus, when its done its done. Keep removing the file and checking it. It does work unless the file has been trashed.
 
I've had some success with the muriatic acid overnite- not new, but also too good to throw them
out. Ken.
 
Good tip on the muriatic acid guys. I have a few large ODB files that are starting to loose their bite, maybe ill give it a shot!


-Xander
 
Card often to keep clean while using. Remember unless it is a double cut file it only cuts one direction. For steel that is gualded into the file take a flat piece of brass and push perpendicular / crosswise to the file. The brass will skate across the teeth and push out the little bits of steel trapped in the file.

This company here will actually clean and recut files and they are fairly reasonable.http://www.boggstool.com/
 
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