Filing, A Complaint

This post started taking shape in the form of a rant. After tossing it around in my head for a while, I think I have something more to offer than just blowing off steam.

Please bear with me.

Learning woodworking is fraught with effort and difficulty, there’s so many tools and techniques. I can usually keep this in mind while helping people learn the craft, but the better angels of my nature seem to abandon me when I watch folks use files.

It’s nails on a chalkboard to me. I usually encounter the awful sound of two pieces of metal mashing together during scraper sharpening, . Notice I didn’t say “ the sound of a sharp file pealing wispy shavings off the edge of a scraper”. Nope, it’s the metal on metal of a car crash, full of force and confusion, that lights my nerves on fire.

There, I feel better…it’s important to get these things out.

I’m going to go into what I consider proper use of a file soon, but what I want speak to goes beyond the file, it’s the recipe for functioning with any tool. I’m talking about attention, imagination and expectation.

Let’s start with attention. This sounds simple, pay attention, but it isn’t. During any cutting action, and that is almost everything we do in woodworking, there is a lot going on. I used to think that getting better at the craft meant getting more knowledge, but now I think the most useful skill to develop is paying attention, to the action and the results.

Next is imagination. imagination will allow you to be present at that place, too small to see, where the actual cutting is taking place, be it steel on wood, or steel on steel. I love inhabiting this tiny space, where the hidden magic happens. Understanding how it works on this level is key to knowing which big motions to make next, be it adjusting your tool or technique.

Finally, expectation is understanding what a desirable result looks and feels like. This is where experience and knowledge is helpful. Of course, unless you are somehow initiated, this is a troubling blank spot that will cost you dearly in time discovering for yourself.

One of the reasons that I ended up being mostly self taught, is that I need lots of space and time to explore as I learn. I love finding out how things work for myself. On rare occasions I have even found ways that conventional wisdom doesn’t allow (please forgive a huge brag, I said “rare”) I try to create this space for students in class, but the time restraints and need to keep the projects moving forward can make it tough. I think the best thing about a class is that you can observe the instructor in real time as they get results and ask questions as you try to emulate them. Though, this can lead to a sort of misdirection. I see this most often with the file. No matter how much I demonstrate and explain how the file cuts and how to use it, I see folks struggle. I don’t know if it’s discrimination against a seemingly unimpressive tool or disbelief that this bar of steel can cut deftly and leave a beautiful surface. While I demonstrate the file, I may be experiencing a sweet cutting action, but somehow people seem take away an image of me grinding back and forth like I’m scrubbing tar out of carpet. The entire time I use a file, the sound and feel of the tool shrink me down, Antman style, to the size of the cutting edge as it cleanly shaves metal. If you look at my book, you’ll notice that often I depict this scale.

Some of the low expectation of files comes honestly. The files we often encounter are dull, misused and poorly stored specimens that are capable of little more than friction. I’m guilty of this kind of abuse as well, so my first instinct when using a file is to find the sharp areas to use, usually near the ends of the tool that get little play. Again, I’ll go more into this soon, but suffice it to say, abusive storage (mashing together in the bottom of a drawer or toolbox) will dull the edges and reinforce the impression that these are, by nature, blunt instruments.

I think saws suffer this same impulse towards disbelief. It’s hard to focus on the cutting edge when they are so small and there are so many in action, we default to pressure and aggression, in both directions no less! With most hand tools, learning light cuts first is key, this is where the control develops and you can observe the cutting edge doing its work. The heavy cuts come later when you have developed accurate expectations of the cutting action and how you can influence it.

Regardless of the tool in my hand, I find that I almost always have an image in my mind of the actual moment of cutting taking place. Two ragged objects (at the scale I’m talking about, everything is ragged) meeting, one hardened and formed into an edge, piercing the surface of the other and deforming the waste by causing it to break into the shape of a curl. There are outward signs of this cutting action, the sound, the shape of the shaving and the surface left behind. This is present with all cutting tools, including the file.

In my next post, I’ll show this tool in action in hopes that i can help you let go of the image of grandpa’s ol’ file and let the file take it’s rightful place amongst your tool kit.