"Artemia Salina" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 18:36:48 -0700, Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:


You won't get chastised by me, but I sure as hell have plenty to say to
those that use files for such operations. That's nothing short of
insanity,
and is very poor practice.

So, do you intend to actually say the things you have to say about using
a file instead of abrasive cloth, or are you just going to call it insane
and leave it at that?

Duh! Yeah, maybe I should have expounded on my personal philosophy.
Mind you, this may or may not be in keeping with the teachings of some, nor
does it necessarily apply to those that have mastered the skills of tool and
die making, where filing used to be very much a necessary part of making
such items. The tool & die makers of today no doubt rely on CNC to
accomplish the more difficult of tasks, although my absence from the trade
since 1983 may be exposing my lack of understanding of current events.

There are problems with filing that are difficult to overcome unless one has
considerable experience. One of them is taking material off uniformly.
Having worked as a precision grinder, and experienced how the typical part
came off a machine, it became readily obvious to me that any kind of hand
work was a mistake, particularly when close tolerance was involved. What
I found was that surfaces were rarely, if ever, a constant diameter, nor
were they round, regardless of grandiose claims by many, including those
with considerable experience. From that, I concluded that the very best
way to accomplish a close tolerance turn was to permit the machine to do it,
or when that failed to be an option, to resort to abrasive cloth, which was
the least aggressive of all the options, and most likely to yield the
desired results.

I agree that there may be instances where filing works, but I avoid it as
much as possible. I worked in commercial shops for 26 years, non-stop,
primarily in the defense and aero-space industries, where work was well
inspected. 16 of those years included running my own business. To me,
files are for deburring, and little more. I concentrated my skills on
running machines, so I don't claim to have any particular manual skills.
Others certainly may have a different school of thought, but I'd enjoy
placing their work in a grinder, where the wildest of claims can be quickly
verified.

Harold