I havent been up to a lot recently that was enough on topic to post here, but lately I may have come up with something of interest to a few.. having a need to file a barrel from round to octagon I was dwelling on a way to affix and index the flats on the barrel other that by eye in a bench vice. I then put something like this in the back of my mind and usually at some time in the future I`ll get an idea. So a young friend asks me about sharpening axes recently and I remembered a tool I was shown to build and use as a young logger. It held the axe in a fabricated clamp and a bar holding a file was pivoted at the apex of the axes cutting edge radius, drawfiling on a fixed plane as you go. Try a search on "filing jig" you`ll see many variations for knives and axes on this. So.. a couple of pieces of scrap wood from an old pallet (had a convenient groove for banding material), a few clamps and bits of metal and I built this.. The barrel is held by a clamp in the groove, manually indexed and measured by a degree wheel on one end, and the file holder is held in the pivot and worked in an arc to remove metal. As Ive made it, the pivot point can be altered for height and depth dependant on the operators needs. The file holder is a mild steel bar 3/8 by 1 ¾, on two edges on the bottom, I tacked on a couple of strips of ¼ round to hold the file between, bowing with a hammer between tacks to hold the file securely. A strip of cardboard from a cereal box under the file to soften and protect the teeth. Clamping the barrel at 0, I levelled the file at the pivot once and completed the main roughing of material without any other adjustments. There is still some finish work to do, and I`m quite happy with the results so far...regards...
Kerry
A picture of the pivot and file holder
The degree wheel and some of the shavings of metal. Dependant on the distance the pivot is from your workpiece, you can exert a great amount of pressure on the file making it cut rapidly with large pigtail shavings
still some finishing to do
