[TheForge] Re: Effective filing WAS: Re: [kl] Re: Sen

[xlch58 at swbell.net]

US Tool still sells them .   A popular brand name ( and at this point 
almost a generic term for them) is vixen file.   Vixen is a trademark of 
Simonds and has been since a little after the turn of the lat century, 
but a google search on vixen file will turn up a few pages of them.   I 
have a fair number of vixen files, of various types and love them.  A 
lot of people think they are just for aluminum ( you find a lot of them 
at surplus sales from aviation concerns) and others will tell you that 
they are for sheet metal work, but then you got to ask how the hell the 
file knows how deep the steel is?    My first "anvil" was made from a 
forklift time and I DID pretty much wear out a vixen file shaping the 
horn.  

Charles

Andrew Vida wrote:

>
>
> Mike Spencer wrote:
>
>>
>> Back when I was a complete novice, I bought something called a "body
>> file".  Flat, with curved teeth, very coarse, mounted on a plane-like
>> unit so that it cam be flat or, by working a turnbuckle, made slightly
>> convex or concave.  Real handy for aluminum and other soft metals.  I
>> dunno if they still make them or not.
>
>
>     They do.  They are absolutely the most wonderful thing on the 
> planet for wax pattern work.  Get a good one with milled teeth (Pferd) 
> and it should last a life time cutting wax.