Restoring hobby files - do-able?

[Jarrett]

hey folks,

I have lots of hobby files which are kinda \"full\" of plastic and metal material and losing their effectiveness. Granted, they are only a couple of bucks each and that\'s why i buy so many, but I\'m wondering if there\'s a way to get more life out of them? Can you clean them somehow?

 

[the mighty dwarf]

I got the same thing, I reckon you can just take a steel brush to em, should take all the crap outta the file.

 

[airhead]

a steel or brass brush should clean out the teeth. If not, get a new file.

Look in the welding section or the plumbing section for some small wire brushes.

 

[Jericho]

Hrm, I should steal some from my journeyman welder buddy. All my paints and stuff are at his place right now anyway

 

[QuietiManes]

If you, or your welder buddy, have a torch, you can also try burning out the gunk in the teeth. Just be careful with the fumes and smoke. Also watch out for the handle.

Not sure how metal filings would react with this. I use this method for woodworking bits and files, so there\'s usually only wood, plastic, acrylic, PVC or, on the rare occassion, Tagua Nut filings to be burned off.

 

[Jericho]

Well pewter should melt at an obscenely low temp, but I\'d still only try it as a last resort just in case

 

[DarkStar]

I use a wire brush attachment on my dremel.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by DarkStar
I use a wire brush attachment on my dremel.

I do the same. The \'hairs\' are finer....I think, than the little wire brushes. I also, every once and a while, take an Exacto Knife and use the point to clean the grooves. Not as painstaking as it may sound and it get\'s all the way to the bottom of the grooves.

SOME - maybe all - diamond files can be cleaned with a torch. Don\'t get them red hot but hot enough to burn off the crap.

 

[Jericho]

I\'ve done the Xacto knife scrape dance many times. I would like to submit that it\'s exactly as painstaking as it sounds

Not exactly easy on the Xacto blade either. The tip will be blunted extremely quickly, so don\'t be surprised if you can\'t make your precision cuts on plasticard or whatever afterwards!

I might have to try the Dremel thing though. I have a small box full of attachments and stuff that I never use. It\'s around here somewhere I\'m sure!

 

[airhead]

Just don\'t use the wire brush dremel while sitting at your favorite spot on the couch... As you use it, and little fine wires break off and shed, they embed themselves in your couch cushions and armrests. A month later and I\'m still filling itchy when I sit there.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Plus, with that little wire wheel - think of it as a wheel of little needles spinning a really high speed.......eye protection...

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
Plus, with that little wire wheel - think of it as a wheel of little needles spinning a really high speed.......eye protection...

Oh, yea. I had my body armor on. Eye protection (cannot see that close without them...). Body armor: heavy towel draped over me to keep the polish from getting all over me...I started with the cotton wheel and polish - stepped up the fight to wire cup.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by airhead
Just don\'t use the wire brush dremel while sitting at your favorite spot on the couch... As you use it, and little fine wires break off and shed, they embed themselves in your couch cushions and armrests. A month later and I\'m still filling itchy when I sit there.

Try digging wire brush bits out of your forehead 10 days later...... A bit unpleasant, especially for anyone watching. Wire brushes aren\'t really sterile.
Anyhow I can\'t believe Peg let you do that sat on the couch. Was she out for the night?

 

[Rev]

call me a philistine but...

I find the best way is hot soapy water. Thats how they clean sharpening steels in the catering business.

I clean my diamond files in hot soapy water twice a year or as needed. Seems to work fine!

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Rev
call me a philistine but...

I find the best way is hot soapy water. Thats how they clean sharpening steels in the catering business.

I clean my diamond files in hot soapy water twice a year or as needed. Seems to work fine!

That might work for plastic & resin swarf but not for white metal. Sharpening steels have steel particles lodged in grooves in steel, with white metal it can be \'smeared\' into a normal file in a way that even a motor tool running a steel-wire brush at high speed has difficulty in dislodging! So soapy water ain\'t gonna have much impact

Einion

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Try digging wire brush bits out of your forehead 10 days later...... A bit unpleasant, especially for anyone watching. Wire brushes aren\'t really sterile.
Anyhow I can\'t believe Peg let you do that sat on the couch. Was she out for the night?

Ouch...
And Peg was sitting on the other couch rubbing brasso around. We were trying to clean up the door handle/lock after refinishing the doors themselves.

I had rubbed steel wool and brasso all over that old brass with no luck, so I broke out the big gun. Started with the cotton pad and polish - not good enough.
Stepped up the fight with the wire brush. Now that got the old protective finish off and the green spots on the brass. Then I backed up to the pads and polish. Finally a shot of Krylon hi-gloss and they look great.....
Couch is not bad this week.

 

[Wren]

This is probably a little wacky, but sometimes I use bluetac (or rather a bluetac like substance) and greenstuff (at that stage where it\'s just starting to get too stiff to sculpt with) to get stuff off my diamond files. Stick it on, pull it off filled with pewter gunk, mash it around in your fingers to get another clean spot and repeat.

 

[War Griffon]

Don\'t bother with the brass brush as brass is very soft it won\'t last that long.

Just pop down to a local hardware shop where they sell tools and you should be able to pick up a file card, they are designed for cleaning files so do the job

Alternatively as already mentioned I use the tip of a knife and just run it through the grooves now and then.

 

[dark shaman]

Yep, file cards the way to go! i\'am in engineering and that\'s really the way to clean all files, copper or brass thin sheet bieng the best card to use followed by steel wire brush for hard toshift metals, it works try it!!:yes:

 

[daGoz]

Caution - long boring diatribe ahead.

Ummm... some background on files:
Files are basically a lot of really small knife/razor blades all lined up in rows, and all angled just so as to shave the object you are working on.

One of the first things they teach you in trade school is that allowing files to come into contact with each other or other hard surfaces is the fastest way to destroy them. The second fastest way is to let them rust. (Fire is extremely fast rusting when it comes to metals).

Now onto cleaning the way I was taught:
If you use fire to melt the \'stuff\' out of a file two things can happen. The first is that the fine edges that make up the file can be oxidized off leaving them dull. The second is that if it gets too hot, the temper of the metal can be affected (i.e. the edges get soft and dull).

Washing them out is not a bad idea, for those materials that it will work on. Be sure to dry thoroughly and oil after to prevent rust. You can clean the oil off with rubbing alcohol just prior to your next use.

File cards are designed to do exactly what we want to accomplish. They have the wire prongs that are tempered to do minimal damage to a file, while still being hard enough to get the job done. The other side is soft bristles which will also not damage the teeth and works on soft materials. Also if you use file chalk after each cleaning (or use) they are much easier to clean. While not exactly the right stuff, for our tiny needle files, standard chalk board chalk works well enough.

What works really well on single cut needle files (which are most of what we use) are small pieces of wood (big tooth picks or popsicle sticks) pushed across the teeth similar to how an Xacto blade would be. This will push most of the pewter (or what ever it is) out from the teeth with out causing damage to the file.
Scraping them out with an Xacto blade is running a hard piece of metal parallel to the edges, but maybe at the wrong angle causing dulling. It is the only way to get a particularly obstinate bit out of the files teeth.

And lastly, if you are using diamond files just ignore the above.

Sorry to be so pedantic, but I was taught this stuff many, many years ago, and I figured that if it saves someone from having to waste money on replacement files that could be spent on minis, being overly verbose would be worth it.:redface:
Chris