Hilton Ralphs
02-18-2015, 5:12 AM
After waiting since September last year for the local Post Office to work out that they have my parcel from Lee Valley, the day finally dawned and I rushed off to get it. I had conversed with Chris Griggs having read his review (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?169344-Review-of-Iwasaki-Carving-File-It-s-really-starting-to-grow-on-me)from 2011 and watched John Coloccia's most professional video review (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?173548-Traditional-Rasps-vs-Dragon-Rasps-vs-Iwasaki-carving-files&highlight=iwasaki) on his file collection and thus ordered two of the Iwasaki red handled files (but some places call them floats).
307214
Lee Valley refers to the cut as Xfine, The Best Things as Extreme-Fine and Iwasaki themselves as Extra-fine. According to the Iwasaki website, the red handled and red tanged files are chemically polished (CP) whist the black handled and non-colour tanged files haven't sniffed any of the good stuff.
Again Lee Valley refers to these as 8" with a 4" cut length and 3/8" in width but other places refer to them as 110mm. Iwasaki notes them as simply 10mm x 200m. Lee Valley does not make a distinction between the CP and normal files.
The preamble aside, I couldn't wait to test these out. I found a piece of Pine brandering which must be the cheapest and nastiest wood around (38x38 nailed to the rafters to attach ceiling boards). I skewed the flat file to the left at about 45 with almost no pressure at all. After a couple of strokes, I switched to using just one hand with my forefinger towards the end of the file. The file tends to want to pull to the right which makes sense if you look at the teeth lines. I was pretty impressed at how light a touch you need and just how quickly I was able to get a decent surface. There appears to be no clogging as found in rasps and metals files and I can't imagine why anyone would want a coarser cut unless you don't happen to have a rasp lying around.
I'll be buying more of the bigger sizes now.
307214
Lee Valley refers to the cut as Xfine, The Best Things as Extreme-Fine and Iwasaki themselves as Extra-fine. According to the Iwasaki website, the red handled and red tanged files are chemically polished (CP) whist the black handled and non-colour tanged files haven't sniffed any of the good stuff.
Again Lee Valley refers to these as 8" with a 4" cut length and 3/8" in width but other places refer to them as 110mm. Iwasaki notes them as simply 10mm x 200m. Lee Valley does not make a distinction between the CP and normal files.
The preamble aside, I couldn't wait to test these out. I found a piece of Pine brandering which must be the cheapest and nastiest wood around (38x38 nailed to the rafters to attach ceiling boards). I skewed the flat file to the left at about 45 with almost no pressure at all. After a couple of strokes, I switched to using just one hand with my forefinger towards the end of the file. The file tends to want to pull to the right which makes sense if you look at the teeth lines. I was pretty impressed at how light a touch you need and just how quickly I was able to get a decent surface. There appears to be no clogging as found in rasps and metals files and I can't imagine why anyone would want a coarser cut unless you don't happen to have a rasp lying around.
I'll be buying more of the bigger sizes now.