Simonds files????

[Tom M King]

Anyone have any experience with them. I was in Horizon Forest Products yesterday, getting some flooring supplies, and they had boxes of Simonds 8" mill files in the area with the scrapers. Regardless of how fancy flooring sanding machines get, floor finishers still have to hand scrape the corners. They have it figured out what works best and easiest. The scrapers have to be sharpened frequently with a mill file.

I asked the salesman about the Simonds files, and he said that's what the most experienced contractors found to work the best since Nicolson quality has gone down so much, so that's what they stocked. I handled a couple, and they did seem quite nice, but I don't use 8" mill files much, so I didn't get a box. I sharpen floor scrapers with 6" mill files.

Anyway, I checked the Simonds website, and they do have handsaw files listed. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about them.

http://www.simondsint.com/handfiles/.../78562100.aspx

If not, I'll find some somewhere, and report back. We all know of the complaints about file quality these days.

[george wilson]

I think David Weaver said they are made in India. He uses Bahco. I haven't had to buy files for some time,fortunately,because I hoarded a whole bunch of files some years ago,luckily before Nicholson went to Mexico,and started making butter soft files.

By the way: In the 60's I found that that black oxide coating everyone started putting on rotary files DULLED the brand new teeth. I was very dissapointed when I ordered a set of new rotary files that were formerly BRIGHT. The new ones were black,and as dull as the used bright ones I was discarding. I HATE those nitride coatings on cutting tools. Simmons advertises their files have that coating.

[Tom M King]

I also saw some on their site without the coating, and the ones without the coating come in more sizes.

It's a shame if they are not high quality. I was hoping I had found something. Curious that flooring guys highly recommend the mill files, but I guess maybe the only other thing they knew about was Nicolson.

I did find them on Amazon, but I contacted the company to try to talk them into some samples for a review, so we'll see.

http://www.amazon.com/Simonds-Single...E574XZF4KFKD0E

[Tom M King]

The day I first posted this, I sent Simonds an email saying that if they would send me some sample saw files, I would write a review for online woodworking forums. I explained the void in the market for quality files for handsaws. I hadn't heard anything back from them, but when I got home yesterday, there was a fairly heavy box from Simonds. It contained a box of 8" Mill files. I'll try again to see if they will send me some tapered triangular files.

[David Weaver]

The taper saw files that I have are a mix of india and US. The us files are good files, they don't start out super sharp, but they work and have decent durability. I'm not sure if I remember using any of the india made files.

I don't know of anyone who makes taper saw files in the US now, though.

If bacho made a full line including xx slim, I'd never use anything else until there was a problem with them...unless I chanced upon some older files that were NOS.

[David Weaver]

I also have a whole bunch of half round double cut and other files from simonds, and they are good quality. They are all US made, though, and I got them on ebay (because someone was dumping them for about half of list price). I got them to use on wood, the coarse double tooth ones work well in place of an expensive rasp, and they work well for hogging soft metals like brass.

[Tom M King]

I didn't have a saw that I could use an 8" mill file on, but I did decide to try them out. I sharpened a Bush Axe (what we call a "Bank Blade" around here), and a couple of axes, and they do work as good as any file I've ever used. My gold standard for files is some NOS Black Diamonds that I found in my Grandfather's General Store, that the doors were just closed up on in 1935. I'm going to contact them still, to try to talk them out of some tapered triangular files. You would have thought that anyone working at a file company would know which files are used for sharpening handsaws.

Like George, I have a stash of enough old, quality files that should last me the rest of my life for sharpening saws with, but I was hopeful for finding another source for decent files with all the complaints in failing quality in the past few years.