Asquith
Diamond
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2005
- Location
- Somerset, UK
Spare a thought for the humble file.
A combination of things got me thinking – Rivett’s recent mention of ‘relay files’, a book about Warrington, and a ‘workshop practice book’ by A W Judge.
In my first employment, I had to assist a fitter (millwright) to shrink a coupling onto a shaft. He had to fish it out of the cauldron of boiling oil and quickly place it on the shaft. All I had to do was to line the keyways up using a key. I didn’t do it very well, and the keyways were slightly offset. I apologised, he said 'not to worry, I’ll file the key to suit, off to the stores with you and get me a millenicut file’. I thought this might have been a trick, like being sent to the stores for a long rest, but no, it was a real file, with which he removed the bulk of the material on the way to making the key a snug fit. Skilled work.
I came across the name ‘Millenicut’ again a few days ago, where the eminent Mr A W Judge himself made this pile of swarf with one:-
He describes the Firth Millenicut files as being precisely made, by milling rather than chiselling. The teeth are milled with a good rake angle. How do they do that? Judge says that all the teeth are milled with one big gang of cutters in the form of a cone.
Intrigued by the curls of swarf, I went to my files, and was pleased to find a big new-looking Firth-Brown Millenicut. Could I replicate Mr Judges’ piles, if you’ll pardon the expression?
No. I certainly produced tiny coils of swarf, but nothing like his. Ah well.
Here’s a photo of the file:-
How did they make this one, then?…….
You know we all have a favourite file? Cuts well and lasts forever? Well, I just checked mine and noticed for the first time that it’s one of those F-B Millenicuts.
I dug out an old article in the Model Engineer about a file-making firm in Prescot, Lancashire, still using the old methods, draw-filing the blank, then forming the teeth using a sort of chiselling machine. I checked on the internet, and was pleased to learn that the firm, Blundell’s, is still in business.
Making round and part-round files is labour-intensive. Have a look at yours – do they look hand made?
That part of Lancashire was a centre for clockmaking and other fine metalworking trades, a tradition that goes back a thousand years to the armourers of Norman times, apparently (according to James Nasmyth’s autobiography). Rivett occasionally mentions the Peter Stubs company. They only go back to the 18th century! Stubs is still in business in Warrington, although they no longer make files. This is where my Warrington book comes in, as I learned that file makers needed a 7 year apprenticeship, after which they were among the worst-paid workers in town! The book quotes a worker who started in the 1920s and produced files from 1 ½ to 30 inches long, with an average of 32 teeth per inch (although they could be very much finer). It quotes him chiselling the teeth at a rate of 180 cuts an inch (I assume it means 180 a minute) without even looking down at the file. He also refers to cottage industry outworkers who would come in to the factory once a week with a matchbox full of tiny files they’d made. The book (‘Warrington at Work’ by Hayes & Crosby) says that Stubs files were in big demand by clockmakers in America in the early 1800s, and cunning ways had to be found to get round the import bar on British goods. (Smuggled them in in cakes?).
And finally, here’s an odd Stubs file. Anyone know what it was made for? I don’t.
A combination of things got me thinking – Rivett’s recent mention of ‘relay files’, a book about Warrington, and a ‘workshop practice book’ by A W Judge.
In my first employment, I had to assist a fitter (millwright) to shrink a coupling onto a shaft. He had to fish it out of the cauldron of boiling oil and quickly place it on the shaft. All I had to do was to line the keyways up using a key. I didn’t do it very well, and the keyways were slightly offset. I apologised, he said 'not to worry, I’ll file the key to suit, off to the stores with you and get me a millenicut file’. I thought this might have been a trick, like being sent to the stores for a long rest, but no, it was a real file, with which he removed the bulk of the material on the way to making the key a snug fit. Skilled work.
I came across the name ‘Millenicut’ again a few days ago, where the eminent Mr A W Judge himself made this pile of swarf with one:-
He describes the Firth Millenicut files as being precisely made, by milling rather than chiselling. The teeth are milled with a good rake angle. How do they do that? Judge says that all the teeth are milled with one big gang of cutters in the form of a cone.
Intrigued by the curls of swarf, I went to my files, and was pleased to find a big new-looking Firth-Brown Millenicut. Could I replicate Mr Judges’ piles, if you’ll pardon the expression?
No. I certainly produced tiny coils of swarf, but nothing like his. Ah well.
Here’s a photo of the file:-
How did they make this one, then?…….
You know we all have a favourite file? Cuts well and lasts forever? Well, I just checked mine and noticed for the first time that it’s one of those F-B Millenicuts.
I dug out an old article in the Model Engineer about a file-making firm in Prescot, Lancashire, still using the old methods, draw-filing the blank, then forming the teeth using a sort of chiselling machine. I checked on the internet, and was pleased to learn that the firm, Blundell’s, is still in business.
Making round and part-round files is labour-intensive. Have a look at yours – do they look hand made?
That part of Lancashire was a centre for clockmaking and other fine metalworking trades, a tradition that goes back a thousand years to the armourers of Norman times, apparently (according to James Nasmyth’s autobiography). Rivett occasionally mentions the Peter Stubs company. They only go back to the 18th century! Stubs is still in business in Warrington, although they no longer make files. This is where my Warrington book comes in, as I learned that file makers needed a 7 year apprenticeship, after which they were among the worst-paid workers in town! The book quotes a worker who started in the 1920s and produced files from 1 ½ to 30 inches long, with an average of 32 teeth per inch (although they could be very much finer). It quotes him chiselling the teeth at a rate of 180 cuts an inch (I assume it means 180 a minute) without even looking down at the file. He also refers to cottage industry outworkers who would come in to the factory once a week with a matchbox full of tiny files they’d made. The book (‘Warrington at Work’ by Hayes & Crosby) says that Stubs files were in big demand by clockmakers in America in the early 1800s, and cunning ways had to be found to get round the import bar on British goods. (Smuggled them in in cakes?).
And finally, here’s an odd Stubs file. Anyone know what it was made for? I don’t.