Quicky rasp comparison

Ryan Mooney

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I was talking with Rob Keeble about rasps and rifflers and had said I'd try to dig up some of the ones I have for comparison and figured I'd just post it here as the site will resize the pictures for me ;)

These are most of the nicer rasps and rifflers I've collected. The ruler is a 6" ruler for scale.

First up is (from top-bottom) some Corradi needle files I got from Lee Valley, some Gramercy (TFWW) hand stitched Rifflers (pakistan), and some lee valley detailed rifflers.
IMG_20160314_203719669_HDR.jpg

Next is an Aurio curved #8, a Gramercy (TFWW) hand stitched half round (#10 I believe), and a couple of medium iwasaki "mill tooth" files.
IMG_20160314_203841336.jpg

Finally a Shinto saw rasp and a Grobet 4 in hand (has a fine and a coarse side).
IMG_20160314_204813536.jpg

Cuts are all in the same cherry the spoon I recently made came out of. Please forgive the bad hand writing.

Shinto saw rasp cut.
IMG_20160314_205056321_HDR.jpg

Coarse and fine cuts from the Grobet 4 in hand.
IMG_20160314_205049520_HDR.jpg

The Aurio (which is fairly coarse)
IMG_20160314_205042489_HDR.jpg

The gramercy half round and the Corradi needle file
IMG_20160314_205022834_HDR.jpg

Finally the gramercy riffler and the iwasaki medium.
IMG_20160314_204958657_HDR.jpg

I didn't test the lee valley detailed rifflers, they're somewhere around 220 - 320 sandpaper (nominally 69tpi but they seem to cut even finer), the finish from them is polished but they don't really remove any meaningful amounts of material. A bit finer than the Corradi needle files.
 
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Hey Thanks a ton Ryan, that's an excellent way of showing them. An observation on my part is that it would do all the sellers a world of good to have some pics like this next to the tool. Illustrates the purpose and benefit very well. Those hand cut TFWW rifflers look real nice in the finish they leave and i like that Grobet hand tool as well.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post this much appreciated. The rasps i have in general do more of a tearing job than a cutting job. I think that's what i realize is the difference between the properly created rasp and one that just has bits of metal sticking out to do as much damage as possible.
 
Yeah, I should do a longer one with some of my other less than optimal rasps just for comparison sake. Some of those leave a more interesting surface texture (to put it nicely).

The other thing I'm not showing here is the relative speed which varies widely (and is only weakly correlated to surface finish). Perhaps a constant number of strokes? Not sure because there are length differences and how hard you push (not very) also determines the cut speed and quality so there is still a lot of subjective measurement here.

I was mostly trying for the "best" quality cut on these ones (without going overboard), so mostly took one or two cuts down the centre and then one or two from each side to try to go with the grain some.

The one nice thing about the really fine needle files is that they still leave a pretty good finish even somewhat against the grain (and indeed this seems to be somewhat true for most "file" type cutters more than "rasp" type cutters the individual teeth seem somewhat more prone to pulling the grain).

I am a fan of the Grobet 4 in hand for small/medium furniture scale work, it cuts pretty fast, leaves a nice surface, and is pretty good at getting into curves. Its not a real beastly material remover as it is pretty small, and it doesn't leave a "finished" finish, but its a handy fellow to have for that intermediate work.
 
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