Saw File L

I can't say enough good things about this tool! These are practically famous among hand tool woodworkers. The concept is simple, the price is cheap, and it is darn effective. One of the best recent tool innovations in a field where most tools can be traced back 300 years. Paul Sellers approved! Buy this! :)It is nothing more than a set of bent and riveted hacksaw blades, and they chew through wood like a super-file, but also have a wider cutting surface than any file I have and leave a finer surface than most rasps. You can hit it aggressively then go soft and end up with a quite nice finish considering it's a wood eater.It won't be totally smooth, but it can be sanded or worked with other tools from there. If you just hit with 50 or 80 grit sandpaper instead to eat up the wood, you may not want to finish with a tool you carefully sharpened, but this has no grit to leave in the wood, so you can go from this to a spokeshave or plane without worry.They are not like a surform tool--it is much better, and bigger than many you will find. The surform has little cutting blades like a cheese grater. This is more like a file, with many small raking teeth. It will cut more effectively.It cannot be sharpened and the blades can't be replaced with regular hacksaw blades unless you are a derious DIYer, so theoretically this has a limited lifespan unlike a spokeshave, but it will do many tasks a spokeshave won't excel at, like milling down end grain. They are cheap enough you won't dry when it eventually does wear out. Note that unlike the cheap hacksaw blades I use, these teeth have not been quick to break off and it is wearing well after a couple years of use. Great Japanese innovation--anybody who does hand tool woodworking can use this (gift idea for the person who has every tool already).

if you work wood and use a rasp and files a lot this is a complete game changer. It has two sides. The rough side removes stock amazingly fast and doesn't clog. The smooth side smooths the stock out to a finish that's ready for 80 to 120 grit. I seriously don't know how I worked wood for 50 years without this. I should have taken a picture but the one thing I did which I did only because I was looking at YouTube videos of other people around the world who love this thing one guy in Ireland loved everything about it except the relatively small handle. And so what did he do He chopped it off with a hatchet and turned his own wooden handle to suit his own grip. I debated whether I should do this because the handle was actually comfortable but the fact it was pretty short kept bugging me and being obsessive I just decided that was it and last week I cut the handle off and took a beautiful piece of a 300-year-old Yew and seated it in the half inch hole which I have to say because of the nature of the blades being back set hacksaw type blades grip the hole without any likelihood that the rest will come out under pressure. But even so I tapped it a little further and then collard that with a piece of copper and it just went from being perfect to being a little more perfect because of now has a handle specifically for my grip that's maybe 2 in longer than the handle it comes with. And I'm so impressed with this tool that I haven't read about the maker or the company so it seems like such a humble addition to the world of Japanese tools but I couldn't make my own handle without getting credit to the maker and so I transferred the brand logo Shinto onto the handle I made because I didn't want to take credit for such a useful tool. I still use my files and less occasionally my rasps and it's specifically because this tool does almost everything as well as the rasps and files. sometimes I need a rasp but this is my go-to would removal tool and it's better than any battery or corded told it does the same. highly recommend. I'm giving the five stars I'm telling everyone worker I see rasping dense wood down to give this thing a look. I think a guy in Thailand that makes ax handles, beautiful artistic custom ax handles wrote me back to say how fantastic it was. And I think he's an old guy like me which means late '50s mid '60s

I recently picked up this wood file for my knife-making projects, and I couldn't be happier with its performance! It removes material quickly and efficiently, allowing me to shape my knife handles with precision. The ergonomic design makes it comfortable to use for extended periods, and the grit is just right for getting a smooth finish without excessive effort. Whether I’m refining contours or doing finer detailing, this file has proven to be an invaluable tool in my workshop. Highly recommend it to anyone in the knife-making community or even just for general woodworking!

I have used it to fit a hammer head on a handle and it worked nicely. This saw rasp really hogs off material quickly and made forming the hammer handle quick. It has two sides, a coarse and fine. Both end up leaving noticeable saw marks but going in different directions and finishing with some sandpaper solves that problem. The handle of the saw file has a bit of cushion and feels comfortable to hold. Since the file is double sided, it is not the most comfortable to hold with two hands since you have to mind the teeth and grab the pinched end of the file. I found it to not be much of an issue though since you could just use it one handed or wear a glove and when you need to use two hands the teeth will be there to warn you.

Amazing tool. Can remove a lot of material fast. It has a course tooth and fine tooth side that allows for good control of the material removal. I used it for shaping handles. It drastically reduced my time compared to using a traditional wood rasp.

This design of tool (basically saw blades riveted together) works so much better than a traditional rasp that it makes the latter obsolete. Seems like it should be possible to make these for under $10 but probably not much demand for rasps to bring the price down. So reasonable enough at $20.