No no no no no don’t end there MORE! Need more!! I’m going to your channel now I really hope the rest of this video is available. He said he will tell more about that later
@ I don't understand your comment. Sorry. I feel like this video is incomplete . The old man was obviously about to tell us how files were traditionally made. And then the video abruptly ends. We learned a few small pieces of information. But I want to see the rest of the video. I want to see him make a file.
Finally a PROPER medieval anvil! I've seen these ALL over medieval depictions. Log of oak with a block of iron/steel in it. Interesting to see it made it all the way up to the 20th century!
Im 78 now and when I stepped into the trade my first full year was spent learning to file. In this age of CNCs it may seem ridiculous but after that year you had a beginning knowledge of what makes tools cut. THANK YOU for the video.
Yes indeed, at school you'd have had hours of being taught to file in metalwork, even on the lathe. We had to produce a sliding bevel, finished to there and back again by filing.
Learning to use a file as a young lad opened my eyes to the craft. I spent months learning how to use all types of file in the correct way. It’s a dark art to do “properly”.
Cheers from Texas. I just cut my first file it was very rewarding and cuts wonderful. I still have alot to learn but the ability to cut your own files is a great tool to have in the old tool box. Thank you for sharing your craft.
It would please you to know that I use files almost on a daily basis as a power engineer / knife maker. Definitely at the top of my list for most useful tools ever invented
I have a stump anvil ive made for myself, after seeing this i think i might add some straps because that arrangement to hold everything tight against the anvil while i work would have been useful for a couple of my past projects. Thank you for helping me learn something new today.
Thank you for preserving this content. Ken Hawley is a great artisan, and this historical perspective on a tool so truly underestimated is valuable to us all.
I am a Locksmith and I use files every single day. In fact, my favorite tool is my Makita Electric File, couldn't do my job without it. God bless the file and its maker!
Thank you Mr Hawley for sharing your knowledge, i watched at the comments and many people, including me, would love to see your chisel skills at making a file.
Uncle is very lucidly explaining the process of getting to make a iron file and even a rookie can understand and embark upon making a file! He must be a master craftsman and he must have made many handcrafted files! He loves his craft! He should share his knowledge and experience and I bow before him in reverence!
I grew up with old guys like this, you learn endlessly from master craftsman. If you can ever learn one skill, learn how to learn, these guys will tell ya first hand it’s amazing what you can do when you go for it. I just picked up learning wicker chairs and cane chairs, definitely a dying trade but you learn alot about how you can make other things in the process of picking up a old trade
I can imagine having a pint and listening to this chap + Fred Dibnah chatting about all of the things within their fantastic knowledge - might take a few years 🤔😎❤️
Incredible hand craftsmanship! Thanks for demonstrating old world skills. Working with fresh horse manure and exposed lead to make files, in the kitchen, while also cooking dinner? The, umm, good old days... :-)
Passing knowledge down to the younger generations through the use of modern technology; this is why the internet is great! Thank you so much for the information. I'll be trying to make some of my own files soon. Hopefully enough of my generation, millennials, will learn these disappearing crafts and trades to pass them on and keep long running human traditions alive!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I feel it's very important to keep these techniques alive lest they be lost. There are still times when this will be valuable. I myself have had a need for some special files. Perhaps now I might have a go at it.
Thank you for this video, i like to use hand tools and never knew how files were made or that they were made that long ago. I always file my work edges, being a fabricator
I made files on our farm, when I needed one for a specific special purpose. Home made files are new , and sharp, and work especially better. Understandably how things are made makes it easy.
Files are still very much used so I assume he means hand cut files. Rasps and files cut by hand are supposed to give you an exceptional finish due to the minute irregularities of the hand wrought process.
I thought it was a weird comment, too. He explains more in the next video on the channel, but still doesn't make a lot of sense. Everyone I know who works with their hands has at least one general purpose file, and I see them used frequently to sharpen a lawn mower blade or chainsaw, or to clean up the edge of sheetmetal after cutting. I suppose a long time ago, they were just used far, far more than today.
Very interesting to see the clip and learn of the museum. I had heard of Ken years ago when I was researching family history. Hawley is not the most common name and I come from a long line of blacksmiths. My father broke the mould and became a gas fitter. My grand father made and repaired stonemason's tools and I am told he produced all the stonemasons tools for Tower Bridge. I wonder of Ken was part of a branch of the family?
Man I love my files. I use them to make keys and clock wheels if I need them, or if I want to clean some small steel for any other project. Part of the reason why people don't like them, I think, is likely that most people use them improperly. They are a very precise tool and can bring an intimacy to the material that machines don't really achieve.
In the early 1980’s I was a corporate engineer with Cooper Industries in Houston. They had a hand tool division HQ in Raleigh NC that included Nicholson file mfg operation in Cullman, AL and another in Mexico City, MX. I visited both facilities. The production operations were largely just mechanized steps seen here. As I recall, bar stock (1095 annealed steel) were stamped into blanks that were fed to a station that included an automated stamping operation using hardened chisels that repeatedly hammered the blank, creating the tooth pattern, blanks were then heat treated and the teeth were ground to sharpen and level the cutting edges. The files en conveyed vertically to a molten salt bath where only the tang dipped into the hot salt to re-anneal (soften) it so it would not snap in service. The process was mechanized, but not really automated. The Cullman operation was closed around 2010 and I doubt that any of the hand tool operations are still in the US. I used to have an assortment of Cooper hand tools in the garage. Most all have been replaced by ac power tools and then battery powered ones. Technology moves on.
This is very interesting, I've often wondered how files were made by hand. I also wonder what the process is for making rasps. I have a friend who is a farrier, and he insists there must be a way to sharpen a rasp even though I keep telling him there's not. I'd like to show him a video of how they are made, and that might convince him.
I've never tried it, but I've read that files (and rasps?) can be "sharpened" by etching with acid or similar. I'll have to try on one of my old worn out files to see though.
Search TH-cam for Auriou Rasps there’s footage of how they are made using the old hand “stitching” method with a hammer and small punch known as a barleycorn. One way I have seen how to sharpen files and rasps is to immerse them in a strong acid for a length of time, the acid erodes away the dulled edges of the cutting teeth but it’s not a panacea to a brand new tool. Files and rasps are ultimately consumables. That’s why in the past they were usually sold by the dozen or half dozen.
How do you prevent warping when quenching files would thicker material prevent warping i know you should plunge and cooling it evenly (i know some files arent straight to file a certain spot for flatness but now i want to use the files own flatness to file a flat.
Ashley Isles in an article spoke about Blacksmiths using horse manure under their anvils. He didn't mention using it wet!! Those tiny points that mean so much. God bless the women of old working to provide. Amazing.
I actually use files frequently. I've got some old stubs Sheffield files that seem to outlast the modern ones several times over. It's harder to find really good files these days. Bahco are pretty good consistently but expensive. There's a shop in Glasgow that sells good quality files they import themselves. A lot cheaper than buying a handled file out of a diy shop. File handles are sadly getting harder to source as well. But you know, even in a world where angle grinder is king, files still have an important role to play.
I had the opportunity to visit Firth Brown in Sheffield when I was juvenile and had a tour of the works. I watched the manufacturing of files using pneumatic stamping machines and was extremely noisy. Unfortunately none were made by 'hand'.
I surely wanted to see each step of the process to the final hardened and tempered file. Why? Because I bought a rasp from a big box store. The first stroke of the rasp curled the teeth over like the banana peel. It was not hardened!
In my trade, we use hand files in a variety of shapes and sizes daily. Rasps, mill bastard, bastard, rat tail ect. I’d be lost without my files. My favorite brand is Grobet, Swiss made, high quality.
This video is grateful as to why the internet exists. Just think, 100 years ago this man could have taken his knowledge with him to the grave. Thank god we live in a day of age where a lifetime of information is accessible at a click. As I'm typing this the video ends... Like wth?!
My old German mentor taught me how to file decades ago, I thought I already knew how. I thought! He taught me how to hold the file properly, how to determine which side to use, how to properly dress a brand new file, how to stand, how to get a good finish, how to store the file…. Nobody knows that anymore.
I'm sure a video would be well appreciated by many, I know I've actually spent some time searching for exactly that, however most of the results for "file storage" were .... filing cabinets, or the cloud, so it's unusually difficult to find any relevant information on metal files!
The disposable society we live in affects our relationships with all nouns. Persons, places, things are ideas. All become disposable. Just like most everyone has a relationship with a verb. Whether you like to run, jump, kick, or throw. You will develop relationships with people who also enjoy those verbs, people are more loyal to relationships based on verbs than nouns. It used to not be that way. 150 years ago the average person had long lasting relationships with people, their boots were made to be repaired along with almost everything else. When you shorten the durational expectations of the things in your life it affects your relationship with all nouns. If you don't expect one noun form to be repairable you stop expecting all forms of nouns to be repairable. That's why divorce is so common. There is a dramatic shortening of all our durational expectations for every noun form.
Good files are hard to find. I buy them at yard and state sales because I use them a lot. There is a company in the colonies that still hand makes files. I saw a show about them recently.
I love the old cut open shoe heel used to hold the hammer. I always tell my wife that I was born in the wrong century. I love making things by hand. Knives and leather holsters, sheaths, etc. Products now are all disposable junk. I like to make things that will last.
No no no no no don’t end there
MORE! Need more!!
I’m going to your channel now
I really hope the rest of this video is available. He said he will tell more about that later
The channel "Clickspring" has the entire process, by a young guy trying to determine how the Antikythera mechanism was made.
@@MichaelKingsfordGray Thank you very much😊
@@MichaelKingsfordGray It would still be valuable if Ken's method was publically available!
@@purvel its, check the page and scroll down
Part way through this video, he tell how the files were cut and tempered: th-cam.com/video/UTXlzcmkQf0/w-d-xo.html
The knowledge and skill this old bloke is passing down is gold ,pure gold,
He didn't pass down anything the video just randomly ends before he even starts
but not here?
@ I don't understand your comment. Sorry.
I feel like this video is incomplete . The old man was obviously about to tell us how files were traditionally made. And then the video abruptly ends. We learned a few small pieces of information. But I want to see the rest of the video. I want to see him make a file.
@@Psylent Well it's like this......
@@Psylent Same.
Finally a PROPER medieval anvil! I've seen these ALL over medieval depictions. Log of oak with a block of iron/steel in it. Interesting to see it made it all the way up to the 20th century!
With the steel block embedded in horse sxxt no less! :-)
@@darinmullins4770 Phew! Someone who knows how years work!
Imagine having 300 pounds of steel back then.
these are the gems i look for on youtube.
your work is amazing, sharing knowledge before it is lost is important
Im 78 now and when I stepped into the trade my first full year was spent learning to file. In this age of CNCs it may seem ridiculous but after that year you had a beginning knowledge of what makes tools cut. THANK YOU for the video.
Yes indeed, at school you'd have had hours of being taught to file in metalwork, even on the lathe. We had to produce a sliding bevel, finished to there and back again by filing.
I’ve used files in a CNC shop more often than you’d think
I am 40. And i agree. My fsther of 80 experienced more true skill than ill ever know.
i actually just started using files for restoring old tools! these things are exceptional and timelessly useful! great video
Wow, this has to be the coolest video ive come across on TH-cam. Thank you for sharing this
awsome, im a steel worker of 27 years and wood working has been a hobby since i was a kid im 43 now and still use hand files at work and at home
Learning to use a file as a young lad opened my eyes to the craft. I spent months learning how to use all types of file in the correct way. It’s a dark art to do “properly”.
Cheers from Texas. I just cut my first file it was very rewarding and cuts wonderful. I still have alot to learn but the ability to cut your own files is a great tool to have in the old tool box. Thank you for sharing your craft.
How do you prevent warping is it a 100 percent unavoidable
What a wonderful man. A true pillar to crafts. Thank you for sharing.
It would please you to know that I use files almost on a daily basis as a power engineer / knife maker. Definitely at the top of my list for most useful tools ever invented
Used in copperplate printmaking as well to file down the edges so they don't rip the paper when it's going through the press
Power engineer / knife maker lol... I thought I heard them all 😂
I have a stump anvil ive made for myself, after seeing this i think i might add some straps because that arrangement to hold everything tight against the anvil while i work would have been useful for a couple of my past projects. Thank you for helping me learn something new today.
Thank you for preserving this content. Ken Hawley is a great artisan, and this historical perspective on a tool so truly underestimated is valuable to us all.
I am a Locksmith and I use files every single day. In fact, my favorite tool is my Makita Electric File, couldn't do my job without it. God bless the file and its maker!
Thank you Mr Hawley for sharing your knowledge, i watched at the comments and many people, including me, would love to see your chisel skills at making a file.
I have always enbraced my favorite file's.... Without them I would have not made it this far in life.. You Sir are indeed an awesome Gentleman..
It's just "files", because apostrophes don't make words plural, Einstein.
@@slappy8941 Now now play nicely. We are all different yet the same. What we need is sharing of knowledge without snobbery.
Uncle is very lucidly explaining the process of getting to make a iron file and even a rookie can understand and embark upon making a file! He must be a master craftsman and he must have made many handcrafted files! He loves his craft! He should share his knowledge and experience and I bow before him in reverence!
Ja ja ja. ❤
God bless this man. I make my own files too hand-stiched files.
I grew up with old guys like this, you learn endlessly from master craftsman. If you can ever learn one skill, learn how to learn, these guys will tell ya first hand it’s amazing what you can do when you go for it. I just picked up learning wicker chairs and cane chairs, definitely a dying trade but you learn alot about how you can make other things in the process of picking up a old trade
As kid i hang out with this real oldschool guys,tricks from ww2 and real old cars repairs was so fun
Thanks so much for posting this video, is wonderful! Looking at the skill and tools involved is like taking the tardis back 1000 years in time!!
Very important to keep this knowledge present. Many thanks grandpa.
Thank you so much for digitizing this important piece of history
I can imagine having a pint and listening to this chap + Fred Dibnah chatting about all of the things within their fantastic knowledge - might take a few years 🤔😎❤️
Ahh friendly fred...what a caracter..😊 same sound and accent....calms you down when stressed
Incredible hand craftsmanship! Thanks for demonstrating old world skills. Working with fresh horse manure and exposed lead to make files, in the kitchen, while also cooking dinner? The, umm, good old days... :-)
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, we should never forget the past.
Most interesting! There is much more that can be hand-made than people these days imagine!
Keep up the good work!
Passing knowledge down to the younger generations through the use of modern technology; this is why the internet is great! Thank you so much for the information. I'll be trying to make some of my own files soon. Hopefully enough of my generation, millennials, will learn these disappearing crafts and trades to pass them on and keep long running human traditions alive!
All tools come down to the ol hammer and chisel much love ans respect from Alberta Canada
Awesome video sir , thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I feel it's very important to keep these techniques alive lest they be lost. There are still times when this will be valuable. I myself have had a need for some special files. Perhaps now I might have a go at it.
I can't thank enough for this video. Thank You
if you don't think I wouldn't like to work with this man for a year straight just to hear his stories and the story of his life you're smoking crack!
Thank you for documenting important history
Thank you for this video, i like to use hand tools and never knew how files were made or that they were made that long ago. I always file my work edges, being a fabricator
I made files on our farm, when I needed one for a specific special purpose. Home made files are new , and sharp, and work especially better. Understandably how things are made makes it easy.
I love when good people share their knowledge.
0:00 0:00
Exquisite videos, loving them all.
Interesting. Thanks for posting this snippet! I would love to see the whole process.
Take a look at our most recent video: th-cam.com/video/UTXlzcmkQf0/w-d-xo.html
Files are honestly one of my favorite tools. I have a drawer full of them.
How did I miss these videos??? Wow..
Files are still very much used so I assume he means hand cut files. Rasps and files cut by hand are supposed to give you an exceptional finish due to the minute irregularities of the hand wrought process.
I thought it was a weird comment, too. He explains more in the next video on the channel, but still doesn't make a lot of sense. Everyone I know who works with their hands has at least one general purpose file, and I see them used frequently to sharpen a lawn mower blade or chainsaw, or to clean up the edge of sheetmetal after cutting. I suppose a long time ago, they were just used far, far more than today.
Very interesting to see the clip and learn of the museum. I had heard of Ken years ago when I was researching family history. Hawley is not the most common name and I come from a long line of blacksmiths. My father broke the mould and became a gas fitter. My grand father made and repaired stonemason's tools and I am told he produced all the stonemasons tools for Tower Bridge. I wonder of Ken was part of a branch of the family?
Thank you for the great video on making files.
Amazing thank you sir. Hello from Alaska.
Man I love my files. I use them to make keys and clock wheels if I need them, or if I want to clean some small steel for any other project. Part of the reason why people don't like them, I think, is likely that most people use them improperly. They are a very precise tool and can bring an intimacy to the material that machines don't really achieve.
Love these very educational video of things of the past!
a file can make countless other iron instruments and tools.
thats while a file is an essential in every serious workshop.
beautiful tools and experience
It breaks my heart that it's taken me 8 years to find this.
In the early 1980’s I was a corporate engineer with Cooper Industries in Houston. They had a hand tool division HQ in Raleigh NC that included Nicholson file mfg operation in Cullman, AL and another in Mexico City, MX. I visited both facilities. The production operations were largely just mechanized steps seen here. As I recall, bar stock (1095 annealed steel) were stamped into blanks that were fed to a station that included an automated stamping operation using hardened chisels that repeatedly hammered the blank, creating the tooth pattern, blanks were then heat treated and the teeth were ground to sharpen and level the cutting edges. The files en conveyed vertically to a molten salt bath where only the tang dipped into the hot salt to re-anneal (soften) it so it would not snap in service. The process was mechanized, but not really automated. The Cullman operation was closed around 2010 and I doubt that any of the hand tool operations are still in the US. I used to have an assortment of Cooper hand tools in the garage. Most all have been replaced by ac power tools and then battery powered ones. Technology moves on.
Fascinating, thank you for sharing.
Fantastic video.
Fascinating and another use for horse manure!
Why was the steel facing on the anvil required in view of the lead ed?
Why did it cut off at the end
How interesting. We enjoyed this.
As many times I've used files I've never, ever, ever thought how they are made.
Thank you for your knowledge and wisdom 💙
One brilliant fellow!!!
Many of those old crafts are obsolete in the modern world but are still very interesting to watch.
Thank you very much for the knowledge received. C.S Portugal
This is very interesting, I've often wondered how files were made by hand. I also wonder what the process is for making rasps. I have a friend who is a farrier, and he insists there must be a way to sharpen a rasp even though I keep telling him there's not. I'd like to show him a video of how they are made, and that might convince him.
I've never tried it, but I've read that files (and rasps?) can be "sharpened" by etching with acid or similar. I'll have to try on one of my old worn out files to see though.
@@bobvines00 I would suspect that would only clean the file really well, maybe removing all the crud in the teeth?
Search TH-cam for Auriou Rasps there’s footage of how they are made using the old hand “stitching” method with a hammer and small punch known as a barleycorn. One way I have seen how to sharpen files and rasps is to immerse them in a strong acid for a length of time, the acid erodes away the dulled edges of the cutting teeth but it’s not a panacea to a brand new tool. Files and rasps are ultimately consumables. That’s why in the past they were usually sold by the dozen or half dozen.
Absolutely amazing !!! 😁
Those men were true pioneers
How do you prevent warping when quenching files would thicker material prevent warping i know you should plunge and cooling it evenly (i know some files arent straight to file a certain spot for flatness but now i want to use the files own flatness to file a flat.
TH-cam come on! You should’ve recommended this years ago!
Ashley Isles in an article spoke about Blacksmiths using horse manure under their anvils. He didn't mention using it wet!! Those tiny points that mean so much. God bless the women of old working to provide. Amazing.
This fella is sharp as a tack for his age
I actually use files frequently. I've got some old stubs Sheffield files that seem to outlast the modern ones several times over. It's harder to find really good files these days. Bahco are pretty good consistently but expensive. There's a shop in Glasgow that sells good quality files they import themselves. A lot cheaper than buying a handled file out of a diy shop. File handles are sadly getting harder to source as well.
But you know, even in a world where angle grinder is king, files still have an important role to play.
I wonder what Ken Hawley would say about his video being cut off like this.
I had the opportunity to visit Firth Brown in Sheffield when I was juvenile and had a tour of the works. I watched the manufacturing of files using pneumatic stamping machines and was extremely noisy. Unfortunately none were made by 'hand'.
some ancient tool makers are better than modern commercial factories
this is awesome
This is what the internet should be about.
I surely wanted to see each step of the process to the final hardened and tempered file.
Why? Because I bought a rasp from a big box store. The first stroke of the rasp curled the teeth over like the banana peel. It was not hardened!
Thank you for preserving this for posterity.
In my trade, we use hand files in a variety of shapes and sizes daily. Rasps, mill bastard, bastard, rat tail ect. I’d be lost without my files. My favorite brand is Grobet, Swiss made, high quality.
I saw the last Harley’s tool shop in Sheffield
This video is grateful as to why the internet exists. Just think, 100 years ago this man could have taken his knowledge with him to the grave. Thank god we live in a day of age where a lifetime of information is accessible at a click.
As I'm typing this the video ends... Like wth?!
This is amazing
My old German mentor taught me how to file decades ago, I thought I already knew how. I thought! He taught me how to hold the file properly, how to determine which side to use, how to properly dress a brand new file, how to stand, how to get a good finish, how to store the file…. Nobody knows that anymore.
I'm sure a video would be well appreciated by many, I know I've actually spent some time searching for exactly that, however most of the results for "file storage" were .... filing cabinets, or the cloud, so it's unusually difficult to find any relevant information on metal files!
Cool, very cool Sir...
I use files all the time
Working on making my own. I don't have any horse manure, can human or dog manure work?
It is such a shame that these skills are in danger of being lost. Nothing today is designed for longevity, but to be thrown away and replaced.
The disposable society we live in affects our relationships with all nouns. Persons, places, things are ideas. All become disposable. Just like most everyone has a relationship with a verb. Whether you like to run, jump, kick, or throw. You will develop relationships with people who also enjoy those verbs, people are more loyal to relationships based on verbs than nouns. It used to not be that way. 150 years ago the average person had long lasting relationships with people, their boots were made to be repaired along with almost everything else. When you shorten the durational expectations of the things in your life it affects your relationship with all nouns. If you don't expect one noun form to be repairable you stop expecting all forms of nouns to be repairable. That's why divorce is so common. There is a dramatic shortening of all our durational expectations for every noun form.
Egyptiins
How long have you used a modern file before throwing it away heh
At very least, he is recording the process for posterity. Thank you, sir, for leaving this record for the future.
همه چی به هم ربط دارد جامعه جهانی همهجااینطور شده خیلی از هنرها نابود و درحال نابودی است
Being in the gunsmithing trade, files are very useful, especially if you don't have machining equipment. " Flat and square mate". Cheers
They don't use files anymore?
What has replaced it? Diamond?
I use one almost everyday.
Good files are hard to find. I buy them at yard and state sales because I use them a lot. There is a company in the colonies that still hand makes files. I saw a show about them recently.
I love the old cut open shoe heel used to hold the hammer. I always tell my wife that I was born in the wrong century. I love making things by hand. Knives and leather holsters, sheaths, etc. Products now are all disposable junk. I like to make things that will last.
Where ist the end of the video ?😮😮
How about showing how the file is made, like the caption said. You showed the set up. Now show us the process.
The chisel puts cuts into the annealed iron.
Then the file is hardened again.
m.th-cam.com/video/UTXlzcmkQf0/w-d-xo.html
The guy died in 2014 so I don't think he really can.
Hand files were used to make the first file machine!
There's no actual demonstration of the process of filing itself. There must be a Part 2 somewhere.
Good man. You did right.
Thanks- I’m looking to make some files
Thank you for video.
Files are still used for wood carving and sharpening saw blades. They haven't disappeared. My files are 20-40 years old.