have I destroyed my files?

deltablade

deltablade

Gold Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Messages
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I heard that pushing and pulling to cut with a file will destroy its cutting capabilities. I have used mine mostly pushing, yet have used a back and forth motion quite a bit. using nicholson files, to reprofile blades. would this mean that I should chuck them and get a new set?
 
If they still cut then keep then until they don't. No, you don't want to pull against a file as a) there's no cutting action that direction, and b) you may lay the cuts flatter, curling them over.

All that said, just about everybody has run a file both ways at one time or another. So stop, but you should be fine.
 
you should lift the file on the back stroke or lighten up on it. rub some chalk on the file to help keep the teeth clean. do you know how to draw file?
 
The main thing to be conscience of is how much pressure you're using when drawing back. Letting the file ride across the work piece under its own weight will cause it to bounce and knock pins loose. The real accelerated wear comes when you try to use the file to cut both backward and forward. Even then one time of doing this (depending on the amount of work done of course) probably won't ruin a file; I learned at a trade school machine shop, and some of the guys there were going back and forth with the file the whole day because they didn't pay attention to the instructions. Their files dulled, but they were far from useless.

So yeah, I agree with Hoosier, but I don't think it would hurt to buy some new ones just to have a fresh file to start with either. A lot of the times with my files I'll find that if I need to remove a lot of stock, using the newer file is better because it hasn't dulled as much, but if I don't have to do a lot of work, using the older file is great because it does just as good a job, and preserves the life of the newer one for even longer.

Edit:

I mention the part about drawing the file back to knock pins loose because a lot of people I knew didn't realize this is what was being done. So I just wanted to point it out in case you see someone leaving their file on the work piece when they draw back.
 
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