Polishing Mild Steel

[Laurie_B]

Yes,draw filing can produce a good finish,specially if done with a fine file-chalked up as already mentioned.
I also use some wire wool which can give a good finish to metal surfaces.

[paul]

With regards to 'pinning' mentioned by Brian a little further up the thread, I have another newbie question....

What is the best way to clean files and can they be 'sharpened'? The set of small files I bought a year or so back are full of stuff (mainly brass and solder), that won't respond to a wire brush. I even tried burning off the solder to no great avail.

[Lurkio]

Hi Paul,
You've probably heard of a file card, which is a flat pad with short wire bristles covering it, to clean file teeth.
I prefer to use a short length of copper, say some 15mm dia. water pipe, which cleans out soft solder a treat - just push the edge of the pipe along the rows of teeth on the file. Flatten the end of the pipe if you wish.
Files can be sharpened commercially I believe, but an old tip is to leave them outside to go rusty. The corrosive action (supposedly) leaves a sharp edge on the teeth . I've never tried it though, so I don't know what sort of a file you end up with!

Lurkio

[chameleonrob]

I don't know where you got your files from but I tell you my experience with mine. cheep file from pound shops market stalls aren't worth bothering with. I get good file (not great only good) from a local engineering supplier (only cost a little) and use them for copper, brass etc. until they start to lose their edge, I then buy replacements and use the old files for steel. when they get too blunt they either get binned, used to deburr components on the lathe or get turned into scrapers. the reason using the files for brass before using them on steel is that you lose the very sharp edge when cutting steel, after which it doesn't like cutting brass but it will still cut steel well.

rob

[Lurkio]

Paul,

As a P.S. to my previous post:
Chameleonrob is right.....invest in some decent files if you haven't already done so. Much better than struggling on with old, blunt files if that's all you have. Keep your old ones (if they're of decent quality) for those odd jobs where you might ruin a good file. Decent files are made from high quality steel and as rob says, can be used to make hand scrapers.

Lurkio

[paul]

Thanks guys. I have one decent medium file that cleans up ok but the small ones were cheap and cheerful and are probably headed south!

[chameleonrob]

only probably? some cheep files I've bought have been useless from day one, eg.
img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/chameleonrob/CID__COfQK8Jt02_.jpg
I now treat any file that comes with a plastic handle with suspicion.

rob