Japanese Handmade Needle Files Review

On a recent trip to Tokyo I found a small shop specialising in jewellers tools so I couldnt resist buying a few bits.
Comparitively unusual to the standard needle files from F.Dick or Vallorbe that jewellers in the west are acustomed to so I wanted to show closely on video the differences.
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[@enhzflep]

.subscribed because of this video. Thanks mate. I made a rectangular needle file yesterday. 32 teeth per inch, single-cut. 60mm worth of working section. Started with mild-steel 4mm round wire, forged into a rough blank, then filed and emeryed to shape. Punch made from 5mm music wire bought from the hobby shop with a point of about 20 degrees. Sharpened with 800 grit diamond stone (emery paper on a sheet of glass would work just fine) The reason the commercially made ones look similar is that they start with round stock of the same size and roll it flat in a rolling mill - you can see he tell-tale signs of this in the radius at the transition between the round handle and the file's profile. The marks on end of the handle are formed on a lathe and is called knurling (pronounced with a silent k) These are added for grip - either in your hand or in the file handle if added. Grinding a safe edge or edges onto a brand-new vallorbe or f.dick file is often necessary and a bit painful ($$ wise) If you make the file yourself for fun, it's a simple matter of never cutting those teeth. It also means you can have mirror finished safe sides which are polished before the teeth are cut and you can avoid harming the good sides on the polisher. It's very important to finish the blank well before cutting the teeth. Failure to do so leads to scratches in your work-piece when using the file - especially when draw-filing. Mirror-finishing the blank on all sides is a good strategy - anneal it before cutting the teeth though, since polishing work hardens the metal to an extent. Finish with very fine paper before polishing so you dont round the edges when polishing. (or use a felt wheel) The longest part of the process was turning the finished mild-steel file into high-carbon steel by heating in a propane furnace for 90 minutes. Chris from the Clickspring channel has some excellent videos on the process, as does the Artisan Makes channel. I used Chris's mixture of table-salt and ground charcoal (without the flour or water) and Artisan Makes's method of enclosing in a steel container (I used 16mm galvanized tubing from Bunnings, with the gal removed from the inside with a quick bath in hydrochloric acid) The bottom has 4 cuts of slightly longer than the tube radius made before these 4 flaps are hammered over and plugged from the inside with a small ball of no-fire (air drying) clay bought from kmart for about $3/500gms. The top is sealed with a plug of the same stuff, with a hole poked in it with a broken 4/0 sawblade or a bit of ~1 mm wire to prevent pressure build-up throwing the plug straight out. Cutting the teeth is surprisingly easy. The teeth raise-up a little when cut. You simply position the punch up as close as possible against the raised bit of the previous tooth and whack again. I guess I was cutting them every 2 seconds or so when I was really in the zone. It's important to keep a magnified eye on the chisel's edge and to resharpen often. This may simply be a result of my quick and dirty heat treating outside on a windy day. Professional file cutters working in Sheffield 100s of years ago could hand-cut 10,000 teeth in a day. I've probably got the day off today and will likely make a few more files. A knife edge, a barrette, a square and a triangular file should probably take me an hour or two to go from wire blank to dropping into the heat treating furnace. I might even get adventurous and try doing a double-cut file this time - something that needs to be done with a mild-steel blank, since work-hardened carbon-steel would absolutely ruin a chisel in no time flat. Haven't had this much fun (or made so little money for my work) since I worked as a jeweller! 😆

[@Oldtanktapper]

There’s a channel called ‘Ken HawleyCollection Trust’ which, amongst other things, goes into the old way files were hand made in Sheffield. Nice to see an industry that died in the UK is still alive in Japan. There’s definitely a different feel you get with hand made tools, nice to see your review thanks!

[@aumi.jewels]

Thanks for explaining the difference…. It really makes a lot of since… I use “vallarbe spelt wrong” Swiss files too. I heard that German files are really good and more affordable. I like the hand room on these handmade Japan files… I’m definitely looking for good needle files. Thanks for the information. Hugs 🤗, Michelle

[@lordmark4966]

those handmade files look very nice to handle in comparison. i like them quite a bit tbh, still needs to be polished on the top angles imo so the rough top side doesnt scratch or file anything other than what is intended for the barrett files. a lot of us end up making our own tools since jewelry tool manufacturers are way out of touch with how theyre used or any inconveniences. u got some nice files there man, once tuned up im sure you will love to use them for a long time.

[@pyrosparkes]

as a part time home jeweller that did a bunch of blacksmithing before hand, i have actually been thinking of making my own files by hand, especially after watching clicksprings videos, as mentioned in another comment here. i think the process could be fun, and give me something exactly as i want.

[@enhzflep]

Do it. My first Clickspring video was the one about making files. I've since made a micro-forge using a 150mm diam tin-can, and a soda can for the inner former. Refractory is plaster of paris, paving sand and a teaspoon of waterglass. There's about 6 hours on it so far and it's still holding up. I use 16mm steel tube from the hardware store as the packing container. I forged a square blank from 4mm steel wire found on the side of the road (the handle from a 20 litre bucket would do, after you remove the galvanizing with some hydrochloric acid) Filed it to a taper, before cutting teeth outside in the half dark using a chisel made from 5mm K&S music wire bought from a hobby shop. Spent about 20 bucks. Hardened the file with Chris's salt/charcoal mix (using hardwood lump charcoal - leather charcoal isn't any better and costs much more) and a steel can made from 16mm tube like Artisan Makes does. 2 hours gives about 0.75mm of glass-hard case. This file was held to a piece of fence paling with a pair of vice grips. It did bend a little while cutting teeth - easy fixed with a plastic hammer on the same bit of wood. Cutting the teeth was surprisingly easy. After I've done 1 or 2 more and in better light, I'd expect to have a perfectly serviceable file. I'll melt down some of the 'pewter' bought from thrift shops for my next attempt. Satisfaction from creating a useable tool with such little effort and money is off the charts. Oh... and it is a huge amount of fun. ;)

[@theyakninja]

These are nice, frankly I thought they are going to be crude pieces of metal. Have you seen the Clickspring's videos on making files ancient way? :)

[@mongocrock]

Have you got a brand name?