nicholsen no.49 and no.50

[Alan DuBoff]

So true. But it does one wonder how work even got done in times past.

I suspect they did it very similar to how we do today. If you find a better tool, or a method that is more efficient, you adopt it. I would think that part is not much different than it is today.

Sure, there was a time when you had to hand forge a square nail by hand, and now you can go buy them pre-made in the store...todays solution is more efficient and in some cases will work just as well (modern square nails as a case in point).

Nicholsons are decent rasps, IMO, and I find the 50 to be very useful. This doesn't mean that there is not a better, more efficient solution out there. Since my Gammercy rasps are more efficient and better tools than the Nicholsons, it's worth trying the hand cut French rasps that TBT sells. Because in my case I have to scratch my head and ponder, "I wonder what it would be like to use one of those rasps if they work like my Grammercys...???".

[Bill Houghton]

in fact, if you want a very lightly used 50, send me a PM.

As, indeed, I did.

[Raney Nelson]

That is kinda how I feel about the Grammercy, they do cut cleaner, and are much easier to use. I also feel it's a small price to pay, so if the TBT hand cut rasps are up to the same quality, that will suite my needs well.

I still like the 50 though, and someone would be wise to snatch yours up, IMO. It is a very useful rasp.

Mike Wenzloff, who probably uses rasps as much and as demandingly as anyone ever has, has said that the TBT rasps are the equal of his older Aurious. I take Mike's evaluation at its face, and this is a nice alternative to add to the mix - especially since the Aurious are a bit more costly now due to import/shipping costs. I rather like having so many ecellent choices.

To the comment "how did they get work done in the old days?" - well, they did it extremely well, and with tools that many of us today might have upgraded quite a while ago. The point (that tools don't make the craftsman) is well taken - but would you take this so far as to wish for all 'progress' in tool development to stop? Just because Easter Island was made using flint tools doesn't make the advent of better carving equipment superflous, KWIM? We put up with a lot of negatives as the result of the industrial and commmunication revolutions of the past century-and-a-half... disconnect from the land, from our fellow man, and from our, ahem, spiritual roots. Having access to better rasps than people could have gotten 50 years ago may not be exactly 'worth it', but I'm taking what I can get. I suspect that if Aurious were available 100 years ago, many of the fine craftsmen of yore would have skipped the Nicholsons back then as well... people always appreciate the best tools they have access to.

[Mike K Wenzloff]

So true. But it does one wonder how work even got done in times past.

So Roger (how's it going btw?),

Because I know you know the answer or at least can easily find it in trade catalogs...just how many different patterns of rasps did Nicholson make "in times past?"

While I completely agree that if one doesn't have other alternatives, the #50 (I would never buy both again) will suffice, those two choices from Nicholson exist because some goober decided they would stop making all the others once upon a time as a marketing decision. A poor decision, btw. They should have had the #50 and a smaller, larger curve on the convex side, finer addition.

Like nearly all other tools, beginning in the 1940s or 1950s, the plethora of tool choices began their final limiting-choice descent. But between Simonds and Nicholson, rasps of a much wider range of cut and shape were still available at that date. As for rasps, I look at the eventual demise of the pattern maker as their death nell.

Point being, for the woodworker, there use to be far more choices. Today, we once again have greater choices. In the grander scheme of things, they cost no more to me than the former rasps of glory did to my grandfather.

Take care, Mike

[Roger Bell]

Indeed we do, Mike, have greater choices, as we are enjoying a Renaissance in hand tool work. It is the nature of science and technology to continually better itself. So we get better tools as the users (the buying public) demand them.

But art, and for that matter, craft, does not necessarily better itself with time and technology. Examples of the craft from before the 19th Century (and its exceptional range of choice and quality of tools) made with comparatively crude tools still stand as superb work in and of themselves. That was my point.

You and your guys do a lot more rasping than anyone I know, so your assessment of what is best in terms of what is available today, is definitive.