Thread: What rasp set to start out with

Shinto rasp - double sided (coarse and fine), made from saw blades. Absolutely superb! And inexpensive.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I find rasps most useful where I need concave shapes; convex or flat I can do with chisels, planes, spokeshaves. I get my rasps at estate sales, so can't recommend any retail ones particularly, although you might look into Narex rasps, if you can get them there.

Narex Wood Rasps & Paring Chisel

Set of narex for sale on the forum, just listed, they must have heard you�� no affiliation

Second for the Shinto,
See how go, then made go for the more expensive ones.

Cheers Matt.

Nicholson is my favorite brand where I live.
Flat and half round rasp shapes.
Pay a little extra money for better quality.
Sometimes cheap generic rasps tend to have soft metal and dull too fast.
Make sure the metal is both hardened properly and sharp.

Another thumb up for the shinto rasp. I had just used metal rasps and course files for the few times I have needed to shape wood but I got the shinto rasp about 6 months ago and keep finding new things to do with it. Just today used it to make large dovetails fit. Got me thinking different about wood rasps in general.
Regards
John

Another vote for the Shinto. I got mine from Amazon and react for it often. Not as good as a more traditional curved rasp for concave work but nowhere near the cost.

Bruce

Rasps come in such a huge variety of cuts & sizes, each suited to different jobs, that it would be pretty hard to define a "set". You tend to accumulate them over time for various jobs & eventually have a "set" that covers the sort of work you do but the collection I have would be different from most other folks' collections, I'm sure. I use mine for smaller complicated shapes (like saw handles) so they tend to be on the smaller side ("modellers rasps"), and apart from a couple of round rasps, they are all "half rounds". So the best I could offer is, if it's a big job, get big rasps with coarse teeth to knock the rough off & one with finer teeth (or a coarse half-round file) to refine things a bit before switching to scrapers and sandpaper or spokeshaves or compass planes, depending on your skill levels & tool kit.

There is little point in spending a small fortune on the very nice hand-cut rasps from Europe if you are only going to use them once or twice in the next 20 years, but if you envisage using rasps a lot they are both much nicer tools to use & a bit more durable than the run-of-the-mill hardware store stuff. The Narex rasps look like a reasonable bet for mid-priced tools (the few reviews & comments I found on a quick search were all favourable), but even the cheap sets on Amazon would probably suffice for occasional use.

For the jobs rasps excel at it makes sense to me to have the half-round type; a rasp with only flat sides like the Shintos would not have the versatility the half-round offers. When the piece you are shaping has both convex & concave contours all it takes is a quick flip to go from one to the other. The Shintos are very good tools & can certainly remove wood quickly and more safely than tools that take shavings if you aren't practised or confident with things that cut (& need frequent sharpening!). If I want to rip off a lot of wood in a hurry from larger areas on flat or mildly curved surfaces, I use tools like a hatchet or a draw-knife or a travisher or scorp & finish with spokeshaves, compass plane & scrapers depending on the job & the type of wood. However, I do use cabinet-makers' rasps for things like short cabriole legs where the constant grain changes make cutting tools more awkward to use.

Cheers,

I really like the inexpensive rasps that are made by Iwasaki. You can see them on this page at ProTools. I actually like these better than the hand stitched French ones I have.

Originally Posted by markharrison

I really like the inexpensive rasps that are made by Iwasaki..

I've got a couple of those Mark. They come very sharp & bite like fury when new, but can leave a very nice surface if you make light finish strokes along the grain. What I like best about them is they have square, uncut edges & they cut neatly into a right angled corner, so they're the ones I go for when I need to be able to do that. But I'd sooner part with these than any of my Liogiers!

Cheers,

This link might be helpful too Paul Sellers reviews a Liogier rasp and at the bottom of the page there is a link to a review on the Shinto rasps

A Rasp by Liogier - Paul Sellers' Blog

He speaks highly of both tools within the parameters of their respective roles . Further down in the comments there is a recommendation for sizes to go for starting out . Looks like if you fall for the Liogier rasps you might be up for a second mortgage however Mr Sellers (and others here) reckon they are the ducks guts .

I bought several Simonds files and Rasps when I started out. They are quite ok. However, I liked better Auriou's later. It mostly depends on how much you're ready to dpend and how often you'll use them.

Originally Posted by IanW

I've got a couple of those Mark. They come very sharp & bite like fury when new, but can leave a very nice surface if you make light finish strokes along the grain. What I like best about them is they have square, uncut edges & they cut neatly into a right angled corner, so they're the ones I go for when I need to be able to do that. But I'd sooner part with these than any of my Liogiers!

Cheers,

I mean; you're right. The French rasps I have (Auriou) are very nice, but they are very expensive.

For the amount of use I (and I suspect most of us, for that matter) have for them, there are arguably better uses for the money in the tool budget.

You can buy a lot of Iwasaki rasps for the price of a couple of Liogier or Auriou rasps and they are actually pretty good tools.