Good news about a Mexican Nicholson file

[george wilson]

I took a chance yesterday at Home Depot and bought a Mexican Nicholson 8" smooth file. This is a flat file,not the triangular ones for sharpening saws. Previously I had found that a dozen triangular files I bought were dead soft to well below the depth of the tooth gullets,so that the files would be useless except for filing butter.

Much to my relief,this one is fully hardened. It is also nice and straight.(There is no guarantee others will be straight,and the plastic packaging does not permit close inspection).

The file seems nice and sharp,though I have not had the time to try it out yet. The teeth seem just as well cut as the old USA Nicholsons were. I am very pleased that this file seems o.k.,as files always have been very important tools to me.

I will report further when I have used the file. This is still no guarantee that the softness problem has been solved,and all the Mexican files you might buy will now be o.k.. But,I am hopeful that they have gotten their softness problem resolved.

[glenn bradley]

Thanks George. Anxious to hear. Files are wear products to some degree and a good source from anywhere is good to know about.

[Joshua Hancock]

Outstanding. Thanks for this info sir!

Have a Good'un,
Josh

[Tom M King]

George, while it's still fairly new, PM me your address and I'll send you a new Simonds 8" mill file so you can do a direct comparison, if you're interested. They sent me a box of them a while back, so it won't cost me anything.

[Mike Allen1010]

Now we're talking!

Like lots of folks here, I've burned through lots and lots of saw files over the years. My go to default now are Grobet Swiss made and Bahco files – IMHO any other contemporary files are orders of magnitude less effective. In terms of a relative standard, if I get Super ambitious and and can find some early 1900's l Nicholson or Simonds - those are gold, but not broadly available and I'm not willing to invest the time to find old, new stock versions on eBay, I've been burned too many times with files that sound great and show up, rusted, soft etc.

If George Wilson is saying the Mexican made Nicholson files I can buy at my local BORG are decent – that's A huge game changer for saw geeks like me! I don't want to overstep and will wait for George's evaluation. I really wonder if the Nicholson sales and marketing people have any idea how influential George's next post on the subject will be their business.

George, no pressure, but of course always very interested in your informed opinion.

Best regards, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Many of us are waiting with breath smelling of bait.

jtk

[Hilton Ralphs]

Many of us are waiting with breath smelling of bait.

That's a good one Jim!

[george wilson]

I'd caution carefulness. There may still be plenty of the earlier Mexican files on the shelves that may still be soft. There is no way of knowing except to buy one and try it. Take it back if it proves soft.

My proof is to take an old USA Nicholson file and see of it will file the front end of the Mexican file.

I did notice that my Mexican file WOULD file a bit farther from the tang than I thought it should. But,I really don't use that last 1/2" of teeth anyway. The front end was completely hardened.

Now,the file could be TOO HARD,and the teeth might crumble off. I'll let you know if that is the case. IF that were the case,I'd know how to draw enough temper out of the file to make it normal. Possibly by putting the file in boiling water. I wish I still had my Versitron hardness tester,but my experience should be enough. What I'd be aiming to do if the file is too hard,is to find a way that any of you can do to "take the snap" out of your file. We'll see. Kitchen ovens are too variable to be reliable.

Several months ago I was contacted by the company,asked about my files being too soft. Perhaps they did get the message down to the factory level and get it rectified.

[Robert Norman]

Is it feasible to harden the softer files if I had a "softie" and a forge going on other projects?
if so, what ballpark color should I aim for? Bright orange, pre-red?

[Mel Fulks]

I don't know but it's not like Nicholson has overcome a problem; they made a choice to not harden the files all the way through. Plasticut advertises that their files are hardened all the way through and they are hardened all the way through.

[george wilson]

Robert,you would have to protect the teeth with something like PBC "No Scale,sold by Brownell's Gunsmithing Supplies. Or,make some no scale compound yourself. An old recipe that I have actually used calls for flour,some yeast,a little salt,and mixed with water till it is like a pancake batter. Dip the files in it,and let them dry some. The flour sticks all over the object and burns off,leaving a thick layer of carbon. Smells like burned bread,but it works,and is easily brushed off after quenching in water or oil. Water for files.

The problem could be that the carbon has been burnt out of the files to below tooth level. In that case,I'd put the files into a pipe with pipe caps screwed LOOSELY on,or screw them on better,but have a 1/16" hole in one cap-you don't want the pipe blowing up from internal pressure when red hot. Anyway,fill the pipe up fully with aquarium charcoal,and heat the pipe up with the files and charcoal inside it. Unscrew one pipe cap,and dump in a water quench of at least 3 gallons. I'd use a 5 gallon pail myself. This will add carbon to the outer layer. I'd heat the pipe up till good and red,and hold it for 1 hour.

Test the files for hardness by filing on a corner of the front end of the files. The files will need a bit of drawing of temper. When I made rifflers,I'd harden them coated with the No Scale,quench in water,clean the No Scale off,and dip the riffler in water. Then,I'd start heating the riffler away from the file section,and let the heat creep towards the teeth. When the water sizzled off,I waited about 2 seconds and quenched. Old timers called this "Taking the snap out of it".

Mel,it makes no sense that Nicholson would make a decision to not harden their files all the way through. I am pretty sure they were fouling up while the files were fully heated up and letting the air get to them for too long before quenching. The cores of their files were hard as glass. A soft skin about 1/32" deep was on their surfaces,rendering them as soft as mild steel.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks for clarification,George. I might have misremembered but I thought there was earlier mention of them useing only a surface hardening.

[ian maybury]

That's useful info re. my previous thread, thanks George. The problem over here is that the box stores hardly stock files at all, and the few they do manage to combine both softness and the almost complete absence of any cutting action. Even worse, if you bring one back for a refund the kids staffing this type of store don't have the foggiest notion of what's expected of a file - and so either turn sceptical or go into dumb mode.

It's no wonder. The purchasing decisions in almost all of these places seem to be made by accountants in head office based on very little else except price. They get their stocking strategies all wrong too - lots of stuff/sizes people rarely use, and not enough of the commonly used e.g. sizes. (our local hardware boasts a whole aisle filled with differing styles of coat hooks mounted on roughly 2ft long boards - but they haven't despite several stock taking exercises meaningfully replenished their fasteners section in three years) It gets so that all the common usage sizes are gone, just whole shelves of oddities left behind - but i guess one widget is the same as another to an accountant.

Then they fire their MD because they are not making money (having often built whole chains of new stores on multiple green field sites in the past few years - they somehow are supposed to simultaneously make enough to pay film star wages to a top few, pay off the new stores, pay huge dividends to investors, and make huge profits too), and pay gazillions for the next technically and practically clueless boy wonder who is supposed to fix everything by remote control from some corporate office 200 miles away and four layers up in the organisation removed from the customer.

Floor staff and local managers meanwhile don't want to know of needs or problems because they have minimal knowledge and no authority to respond, so they end up de-motivated and switched off. So talking to them about stuff makes no difference because the information is never even heard - never mind acted on. ( it's that grumpy old f*** causing bother again......…)

[george wilson]

SAVE US FROM PURCHASING AGENTS!!!!!! Ian,when we DID allow the purchasing dept. in the museum to select a welding cart for us,we had to STRENGTHEN it and add several extra welds before it was fit to hold the oxygen and acetylene cylinders!!

They got all mad when I went to Pennsylvania and selected a lathe and a milling machine for the Toolmaker's Shop in 1986. But,my director told them that I was the only one who was going to pick out my equipment! Fortunately,the director knew my work,and had seen me use a lathe.

[Robert Norman]

Thanks for the wisdom George, especially about NOT accidentally making a pipe bomb!! I'll do
some research into No Scale since my forge is a small brake drum for plane irons and smallish objects.
I'm finding the metal working side of making planes as fun as the wood working aspects on making my own tools and truly appreciate your inputs on both aspects.