How Hand Stitched Rasps are Made

[Dan Gonzales]

Here's a neat video showing how Liogier makes hand stitched rasps. It's the lower frame and has English titles.

http://www.liogier-france.fr/what-is...?lang=en#video

Cheers,

[Stuart Ablett]

Mad respect for the guys who do the hand stitching!

[Vaughn McMillan]

It's no surprise that a good hand-stitched rasp is very pricey when you see the amount of labor that goes into each one.

Question for the Neander types: Why does a hand-stitched rasp seem to perform better than a machine-made one?

[Jonathan Shively]

Vaughn, I know that one. Just saw Chris Schwartz on The WoodWright shop. The hand stitched rasp is random. Machine made are identical rows. The hand stitched one thus doesn't create the high low groove like a machine one does.

[Noel Liogier]

To understand better the difference between machine-made rasps and a hand-stitched one, you may want to read this and that.

Noel

PS : Thanks Jonathan, after reading your sentence « I'm so far behind, I think I'm in first place», I think I will still have a smile on my face when I’ll go to sleep tonight

[Toni Ciuraneta]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but is there a way of re-stiching a worn out rasp? I know it is more a metal working question but, I only need to know if before re.stichitching them they are heated or tempered afterwards, or if it can be done just with a punch following the original pattern.

[Dan Gonzales]

It appears that they are stitched first then hardened. It would be more difficult to raise the tooth on hardened steel and maybe not even possible.

I am thinking chemically or electrolytically removing some steel might work.

[Noel Liogier]

You surely have to annealed the steel first in order to lower its hardness. Then you need to grind and polisth the rasp so it becomes a good blank again (the cross section of the new rasp will be smaller then). Then you can stitch it and harden it again.

Compared to the price of a new one, this will surely not save money, but it can be a lot of fun.

[Stuart Ablett]

Noel, thank you very much for the information on your fine tools, I just read the two links you posted, very interesting!

Are your tools only available from your website?

Cheers!

[Noel Liogier]

Hello Stuart, my tools are also at some retaillers... but unfortunately I don' have one in Tokyo or in Japan.