Use Nicholson Double Ender files on an old tenon saw?

[DigitalM]

Earlier this year I bought a box full of "Nicholson Double Ender" files and handles at a car boot. I don't know how much age they have, but they were pretty much mint without a hint of use or rust, and the handles were clean as a whistle. I think I paid £3 for about 5 files and 6 handles. Didn't have any reason to buy them other than they were cheap and I thought they may come in handy for something.

Anyway, they're triangular and tapered. Can I use these to sharpen my old tenon saw? Damn thing is pretty dull at the moment.

It doesn't say they're saw files on the box. Is that what they're specifically for?

I watched the Paul Sellers video on the subject recently and while he went to great lengths to talk about the process, he barely mentioned anything about the files to use! Bit of an oversight I think, but there you go.

 

[DigitalM]

Think I've found the answer to my own question. I've just found this which confirms they intended for saw use:

http://www.oldtools.co.uk/other-tools/3 ... files.html

 

[DigitalM]

Well I'm continuing my conversation with myself as everyone else has gone to bed!

https://paulsellers.com/2013/01/nichols ... l-no-good/

It seems on further research Sellers thinks that the old Nicholsons are great, but the new ones are terribad. He seriously rates Bahco files for saw sharpening in the UK now. Anyway, the upshot is, nothing wrong with these ones I have. I'll knock up something to hold the saw in and give it a go.

 

[AndyT]

Good morning!
You did very well snapping those up. They are certainly for saws. And there has been a worldwide decline in the quality of new files, making hand filing potentially difficult to maintain in future. Cool packaging too.

The general instruction is the bigger the teeth, the thicker the file needed.
This is mostly about economy of wear on the files. If the width of the filed tooth is just less than half the width of the file, you get three fresh filing opportunities at each end of the file. If the teeth are wider than half the width of the file, when you rotate the file to use fresh teeth, you'll find that a strip of what should be new tooth area is already worn.

On a ripsaw, where the tooth triangles are not equilateral, this could mean that you only get one fresh filing per end, not three.

But as long as your files are wider than the saw teeth, they will work.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I thought that triangular files had sharper corners than files specifically designed for saws?

 

[AndyT]

I thought that triangular files had sharper corners than files specifically designed for saws?

Well, yes, there are triangular files with just three working faces and sharp arrises. But all the double ended files I've ever seen were saw files. Really more like hexagonal in cross section, with three broad faces and three very narrow ones, so the saw gullets end up curved and not likely to start a split.

So I assume these are proper saw files and the description of them as triangular is approximate only.

 

[DigitalM]

When I said they were triangular I was being very general, it is not written on the box as a description of the product. That's my inexperience in discussing files, sorry for causing confusion!

 

[D_W]

Well I'm continuing my conversation with myself as everyone else has gone to bed!

https://paulsellers.com/2013/01/nichols ... l-no-good/

It seems on further research Sellers thinks that the old Nicholsons are great, but the new ones are terribad. He seriously rates Bahco files for saw sharpening in the UK now. Anyway, the upshot is, nothing wrong with these ones I have. I'll knock up something to hold the saw in and give it a go.

The new mexican nicholsons are making a comeback. Hopefully it's a sign that it just took the mexico folks a little while to understand what a good file is. They probably won't ever be as good as vintage US files, but they are certainly usable now.

Take that criticism with a grain of salt, too (it came from a lot of folks like Paul Sellers who will always decry when something changes, especially if it's offshoring manufacturing of something). The files were a little soft right after the transition and the blanks weren't finished as well, so the teeth weren't as super clean and durability was off. However, there has never been a point with any mexican nicholsons that you couldn't sharpen a saw, though, and two of the common sizes in the states are available on the ground everywhere for $4 and $5, respectively (6 slim and 6 xx slim). Other sizes can be had at supply houses like mcmaster (except for xx slim files) for about the same price, and mcmaster doesn't sell anything cheap.

They just weren't the equal of bahcos, but we have problems there, too - no xx slim for sale anywhere, which leaves dovetail saw files to buy expensive needle files. The other thing with grobet/bahco/nicholson is that they all have different sized corners, so you want to stick with one if you can, on a given saw. The grobet had knife-like corners, the nicholson in the middle and the bahco's corners are fairly blunt. If you put a grobet file (skinny corners) into a tooth last filed by bahco (fat corners), you will have to fully cut the gullet before you start, or the thin edge of the nicholson file is sitting in a fat gullet more or less able to pivot front to back while you're filing instead of sitting tidily in the tooth geometry (loveliness in saw filing comes when the file fits in the tooth the next time and you don't have to go through an arduous process of jointing, checking, etc, each time you touch up a saw).

I never got any nicholson files that had the quality problems that grobet "USA" (India) files had with terrible geometry, sometimes missing teeth on the corners and sometimes super thin sharp corners that would break off right away.

IF you have a saw that you've already sharpened, and you were hypothetically using the mexican nicholsons to just resharpen said saw (a touch up rather than restoring a flea market saw), I have seen few (no) saws that you couldn't resharpen fully with one corner of one of those files - even right after the transition from USA to mexico. So here in the states, that means a minimum of 3 resharpens for five bucks - that includes newer 1095 saws, which are no harder than vintage saws that are on the hard side. That's really not that bad.

(the files you showed a picture of appear to be excellent quality with even corners. If a file has decent corners with teeth, is triangular, in the ballpark of twice as long on the side as the height of a tooth on a given saw, and the teeth are a reasonable single cut size [watch out for double cut triangular files], you can sharpen a saw with it).

 

[Fitzroy]

My understanding is that true Saw files are 'four square' meaning they have a small flat face at the meeting point of the large triangular faces. The means at the base of each tooth gullet there is a flat spot rather than a sharp intersection. This prevents a stress point where a crack in the saw blade could form.

F.

 

[custard]

Well I'm continuing my conversation with myself as everyone else has gone to bed!

https://paulsellers.com/2013/01/nichols ... l-no-good/

It seems on further research Sellers thinks that the old Nicholsons are great, but the new ones are terribad. He seriously rates Bahco files for saw sharpening in the UK now. Anyway, the upshot is, nothing wrong with these ones I have. I'll knock up something to hold the saw in and give it a go.

The new mexican nicholsons are making a comeback. Hopefully it's a sign that it just took the mexico folks a little while to understand what a good file is. They probably won't ever be as good as vintage US files, but they are certainly usable now.

Take that criticism with a grain of salt, too (it came from a lot of folks like Paul Sellers who will always decry when something changes, especially if it's offshoring manufacturing of something). The files were a little soft right after the transition and the blanks weren't finished as well, so the teeth weren't as super clean and durability was off. However, there has never been a point with any mexican nicholsons that you couldn't sharpen a saw, though, and two of the common sizes in the states are available on the ground everywhere for $4 and $5, respectively (6 slim and 6 xx slim). Other sizes can be had at supply houses like mcmaster (except for xx slim files) for about the same price, and mcmaster doesn't sell anything cheap.

They just weren't the equal of bahcos, but we have problems there, too - no xx slim for sale anywhere, which leaves dovetail saw files to buy expensive needle files. The other thing with grobet/bahco/nicholson is that they all have different sized corners, so you want to stick with one if you can, on a given saw. The grobet had knife-like corners, the nicholson in the middle and the bahco's corners are fairly blunt. If you put a grobet file (skinny corners) into a tooth last filed by bahco (fat corners), you will have to fully cut the gullet before you start, or the thin edge of the nicholson file is sitting in a fat gullet more or less able to pivot front to back while you're filing instead of sitting tidily in the tooth geometry (loveliness in saw filing comes when the file fits in the tooth the next time and you don't have to go through an arduous process of jointing, checking, etc, each time you touch up a saw).

I never got any nicholson files that had the quality problems that grobet "USA" (India) files had with terrible geometry, sometimes missing teeth on the corners and sometimes super thin sharp corners that would break off right away.

IF you have a saw that you've already sharpened, and you were hypothetically using the mexican nicholsons to just resharpen said saw (a touch up rather than restoring a flea market saw), I have seen few (no) saws that you couldn't resharpen fully with one corner of one of those files - even right after the transition from USA to mexico. So here in the states, that means a minimum of 3 resharpens for five bucks - that includes newer 1095 saws, which are no harder than vintage saws that are on the hard side. That's really not that bad.

(the files you showed a picture of appear to be excellent quality with even corners).

Excellent summary. Can't disagree with anything there and I learnt something too, namely the point about sticking to one brand for consistent corner shape. Never thought of that before.

One point though, Bahco xx slim are available, in the UK at least I get them from Workshop Heaven.

 

[D_W]

Well I'm continuing my conversation with myself as everyone else has gone to bed!

https://paulsellers.com/2013/01/nichols ... l-no-good/

It seems on further research Sellers thinks that the old Nicholsons are great, but the new ones are terribad. He seriously rates Bahco files for saw sharpening in the UK now. Anyway, the upshot is, nothing wrong with these ones I have. I'll knock up something to hold the saw in and give it a go.

The new mexican nicholsons are making a comeback. Hopefully it's a sign that it just took the mexico folks a little while to understand what a good file is. They probably won't ever be as good as vintage US files, but they are certainly usable now.

Take that criticism with a grain of salt, too (it came from a lot of folks like Paul Sellers who will always decry when something changes, especially if it's offshoring manufacturing of something). The files were a little soft right after the transition and the blanks weren't finished as well, so the teeth weren't as super clean and durability was off. However, there has never been a point with any mexican nicholsons that you couldn't sharpen a saw, though, and two of the common sizes in the states are available on the ground everywhere for $4 and $5, respectively (6 slim and 6 xx slim). Other sizes can be had at supply houses like mcmaster (except for xx slim files) for about the same price, and mcmaster doesn't sell anything cheap.

They just weren't the equal of bahcos, but we have problems there, too - no xx slim for sale anywhere, which leaves dovetail saw files to buy expensive needle files. The other thing with grobet/bahco/nicholson is that they all have different sized corners, so you want to stick with one if you can, on a given saw. The grobet had knife-like corners, the nicholson in the middle and the bahco's corners are fairly blunt. If you put a grobet file (skinny corners) into a tooth last filed by bahco (fat corners), you will have to fully cut the gullet before you start, or the thin edge of the nicholson file is sitting in a fat gullet more or less able to pivot front to back while you're filing instead of sitting tidily in the tooth geometry (loveliness in saw filing comes when the file fits in the tooth the next time and you don't have to go through an arduous process of jointing, checking, etc, each time you touch up a saw).

I never got any nicholson files that had the quality problems that grobet "USA" (India) files had with terrible geometry, sometimes missing teeth on the corners and sometimes super thin sharp corners that would break off right away.

IF you have a saw that you've already sharpened, and you were hypothetically using the mexican nicholsons to just resharpen said saw (a touch up rather than restoring a flea market saw), I have seen few (no) saws that you couldn't resharpen fully with one corner of one of those files - even right after the transition from USA to mexico. So here in the states, that means a minimum of 3 resharpens for five bucks - that includes newer 1095 saws, which are no harder than vintage saws that are on the hard side. That's really not that bad.

(the files you showed a picture of appear to be excellent quality with even corners).

Excellent summary. Can't disagree with anything there and I learnt something too, namely the point about sticking to one brand for consistent corner shape. Never thought of that before.

One point though, Bahco xx slim are available, in the UK at least I get them from Workshop Heaven.

I wish they were available here. The part number is in the catalog here, but the xx slim files aren't available. Williams tool (snap on, I believe) distributes bahco here because they own the brand. Lots of sites sell the files reasonable ($5-$7 a file), but you have to buy by the box - and the sellers are just web fronts. Williams ships the box to you. There's never xx slim available here on those front sites. But, if they're available, the folks who split boxes and sell them individually (some of the saw gurus - price per file goes up that way, of course) may have managed to get the xx slim. Nobody carried individual files the last time I bought bahco, but now several do, so hopefully I'm out of date here, too. They're superb files, as good as anything I've ever made if you don't mind the fat edge (which is durable due to its fatness).

The only files I've ever seen that were measurably more neatly made are some swiss needle files that a friend sold me ($20 for a whole set!!) that were made in the early 1900s. They are otherworldly in the level of care in their geometry - and finish - both incredibly sharp and crisp.

 

[AndyT]

One point though, Bahco xx slim are available, in the UK at least I get them from Workshop Heaven.

I wish they were available here. The part number is in the catalog here, but the xx slim files aren't available. Williams tool (snap on, I believe) distributes bahco here because they own the brand. Lots of sites sell the files reasonable ($5-$7 a file), but you have to buy by the box - and the sellers are just web fronts. Williams ships the box to you. There's never xx slim available here on those front sites. But, if they're available, the folks who split boxes and sell them individually (some of the saw gurus - price per file goes up that way, of course) may have managed to get the xx slim. Nobody carried individual files the last time I bought bahco, but now several do, so hopefully I'm out of date here, too. They're superb files, as good as anything I've ever made if you don't mind the fat edge (which is durable due to its fatness).

Dave - have a look at Workshop Heaven here - you can order from there too and you can even set the currency to work in Dollars!
If you have any questions or doubts, Matthew will answer them promptly and posts on here too.

https://www.workshopheaven.com/hand-too ... files.html

 

[DigitalM]

I've just looked on my Nicholson box and they are "No8". I can't find out what that is in relation to slim, X slim etc. Anyone have any idea?

 

[Honest John]

Nothing like this ever happens to me !! All I come home with from boot sales I s junk!

 

[DigitalM]

I picked them up for the workshop a few minutes ago. Here are the files in question. Pretty good condition except one appears to have been used on wood. I'm sure it can be cleared. I hadn't realised at the time how much these things are new. Not a total windfall, but a welcome bargain, and lovely vintage box.

 

[AndyT]

I've just looked on my Nicholson box and they are "No8". I can't find out what that is in relation to slim, X slim etc. Anyone have any idea?

Would they happen to be 8" long?

There was a huge range of types and sizes. This may help:

https://archive.org/details/Nicholson19 ... ndEnvelope

or else this later catalogue says a bit more about double ender sizes - the longer ones were fatter.
https://archive.org/details/NicholsonFileCatalogNS1957

 

[DigitalM]

Oh yeah, they are exactly 8".

There was at least a No.7 and No.8 and the length doesn't appear to have anything to do with the profile, as both Slim and Extra Slim are available in different lengths.

I presume at this stage that No.7 is Extra-Slim and No.8 is slim:

 

[AndyT]

I sneakily edited my post while you were deep in 1911 and added an extra link - have a look at the later one. It seems that the big range of options was on single ended files while the double ended ones were presumably a more basic option for ordinary mortals, sized in proportion to their length.

 

[DigitalM]

Thx Andy, can't believe how much I've learned about files today.

 

[DigitalM]

I sneakily edited my post while you were deep in 1911 and added an extra link - have a look at the later one. It seems that the big range of options was on single ended files while the double ended ones were presumably a more basic option for ordinary mortals, sized in proportion to their length.

Thanks for the clarification, that's much clearer.