Thread: Made a tote handle for a 5 1/2

Been a while since I bought mine, MA, but I got them from Lee Valley. They don't appear to carry them any more, but now offer hand-cut rasps made in the Czech republic instead. Prices have gone up & the $ has gone down, so they are not as frugal a buy as the ones I bought were.

Dieter Schmid have some at a reasonable price. The one listed listed on this page as (5 = fine 15 cm 25 cm 18 x 5 mm) coupled with a very fine 6 inch (next lot down) would make a good pair for handle-making, but if you want a general-purpose rasp, I'd go for a medium cabinet rasp - great for roughing out cabriole legs & suchlike.

The first 'decent' rasps I had were Nicholson "patternmaker" rasps. But Nicholson decided to have all their stuff made in Mexico & Brazil & the quality of their files went to hell - I gave up on Nicholson saw files a long while ago! I read on US forums that the rasps went off too, & they aren't cheap, which made me wary of getting any more, so that's when I started casting about for alternatives, and became "hooked" on French hand-cut rasps about 10 or 12 years back. I bought a bunch of Liogiers while I was still salaried. They are truly excellent tools and you get your money's worth (eventually!), but the initial outlay for a half-dozen rasps is eye-watering & may be out of the question if you are on a tight tool-budget.

There may be other sources of decent rasps - someone else might be able to offer suggestions? I haven't kept up with developments since the Liogiers came into my life - most of them still have a few years left in them, but if I outlast them, I'll have to think seriously about replacing several of them at some point.

Maybe I should start a thread on rasps & get some wider input on what's the flavour of the month, sources, etc., so we don't hijack this one...

Cheers,

PS - here's another maker of hand-cut rasps at prices a bit less than the French versions...