This Old Tony's OPUS!

Oh [Music] [Music] what you're about to witness is a true and sad story about a man and a machine one of unrequited love of forlorn hope spanning nearly a decade a roller coaster ride of near misses and bad metaphors now sure we can love machines but can machines love us no no they can't not without this chip anyway to keep this from becoming an otherwise short video I'm going to lump in a dubiously related topic hope you don't mind in no particular order I'd like to talk about filing first since you know this is now the all filing all the time channel and only then introduce you to my new die filer known in some circles is a filing and sawing machine not sure the difference if any between the two but I've always called them die filers there's been an elephant in this room for much too long and quite frankly I'm running out of shop space so I'm coming out swinging sure I might lose 80% of my subscriber base during this Ford versus Chevy debate but I won't be silenced unless of course you stop this video right now lift the file on the backstroke or can you drag it back to the start not passing go and not collecting your 200 bucks [Music] why are you looking at me I used to hate files Wyckoff up all the blood sweat and tears when you can have a milling machine or a leave given an angle grinder right I mean who's got time for an filing well if you're of that mindset there's really nothing I can say to change your mind these things need time but if you've already seen the light you'll likely understand why my good quality files are counted among my most cherished tools good quality files equal awesome I mean you folks have seen what clickspring does right incredible and if you ever get the chance to get in close with the tool and die maker try and have a look at what those folks can do with tiny little rift lore files and little broken off pieces of grinding stones now that we're all on the same page about clickspring the question was should you lift the file on the back stroke trust me that hurt me more to film than it did you to watch most people have it drilled into them early on that dragging a file backwards across the cut is sacrilegious even if they do do it themselves and no one's looking if they see you doing it you can bet your bottom dollar they'll have something to say sure if they witness a crime against humanity oh well it's none of their business move along but if they see you drag a file backwards hell hath no fury premise being that not lifting the file on the return stroke dragging it will kill it in short order and is every compassionate human being with even a glimmer of love and their heart knows you just don't do that to a file you just don't well I'm here to tell you that's a bunch of hooey or perhaps it's true bottom line it's complicated or it's not before giving you my non-committal an evasive answer let's consider a few things together file teeth generally look something like this sorry like this that non-symmetric or a sawtooth pattern means it really wants to cut in one direction rather than the other each tooth has a massive amount of support behind it in one direction in theory anyway it makes sense that pulling a file backwards probably isn't a good idea since I mentioned sawtooth let's can intimate look at an actual saw have teeth that look quite similar to a file but no one seems to have a problem drawing a saw backwards do they in fact pulling us all backwards is usually a good way to get the cut started where you want yeah yeah this is for wood we were talking about metal I about a hacksaw don't sit there and tell me you lift a hex on the back stroke yeah I think most people when presented with a problem that can only be solved with a hacksaw start by sliding this all over the place until it happens to bite somewhere nine times in attend it isn't where you wanted to cut but close enough right as soon as a stable cut starts green light goes on and they go absolutely berserk until they are through the part certainly can't deny that that works probably doesn't make for the longest lasting hacksaw blade but it works maybe you can see where I'm going with this the tooth form on a hacksaw blade is much more aggressive than on a file not to mention it's thinner or smaller so why don't these teeth all shear right off when you go into your Berserker hacksaw rage unless it's a race against the clock trying to get that bike lock off before anybody sees you you're probably sawing at a comfortable pace and naturally taking a bit of pressure off on the back stroke you're putting power into the push stroke but unconsciously you've learned not to kill yourself on the back stroke thereby likely taking pressure off the teeth as evidence for that go out to your garage right now hacksaw your way through I don't know maybe a quarter inch round like your wrought iron chair leg from your patio set that's just a welded mild steel I'd wager that all eight times the blade popped out of your hacksaw before you got through the round stock it popped out on the push stroke now what was this video even if I'm filing I'm likely cleaning up a part like a simple deburr or maybe fine-tuning a fit or maybe I'm just trying to get some funny shape I can't get with another tool in any case if my files out there usually isn't too much more to go and I'd wager most people are in that same boat because of that you don't usually see people go as savage with a file as they might with a hacksaw I mean there are always monsters out there in this world unless you're using a file to break out of prison typically you're shooting for accuracy over material removal rate you're at a point where each file stroke counts and one extra in the wrong place might make the difference between a good fit and a sloppy one we're a clean surface force a crooked one figuring out how much to file and where well is a subject for another time but control is usually always important let's start easy if I'm deburring though what you're seeing is a little bit more in the deburring I think I usually lift the file I'd have to go back through the security footage but usually I lift not because I'm worried about the file but I want to see what's going on if it's not completely deburred I might give it another shot I'm just looking to break the edge nothing fancy but I want to get the whole thing but let's say instead I'm cutting a chamfer a chamfer I'd like to look nice now if you can't tell I'm reaching for examples here on this part you could just mill it but you know you may have parts that don't have straight sides some round feature you're trying to chamfer or maybe it's some awkward feature on a bigger part that you don't have the tooling to reach anyway my power strokes in this case with a coarser larger file likely include lifting since again I'm trying to see where my work is going I'm still mostly human so my file strokes aren't going to go down with a hundred percent machine-like accuracy plus there's a natural tendency to move the file in a swinging motion which might cause you to roll over the surface you're trying to develop once I'm close the file leaves the work less and less I'm starting to drag mostly because after this much work I'm really hating my file and getting spiteful if my scribe lines are what I was going for I still have quite a bit to go I'm starting to break a sweat it's never a good sign and a switch to a finer cut file if I lift the file too far away I risk losing the angle I was working at like as I file I develop a certain muscle memory for where the file is going where the material is and sort of a consistency of motion I've already brought in most of the surface and I'm fine-tuning at this point although I might look and sound like I'm dragging the file and I suppose I am technically I try to keep the return strokes very light again if I take the file away completely I risk losing my reference I risk losing that muscle memory that tells me where that surface is Gabe is starting to get a little over the top this isn't some Zen Buddha magic trick if it sounds stupid it's because I'm trying to put into words something that comes naturally with practice it's like trying to explain walking ok left foot no right yeah definitely right first wait think of it perhaps like sharpening a knife you know how you rock the knife a little looking for the bevel and when you got it you pop and lock and only use your ankles and your nose muscles to rock yourself back and forth while keeping everything else the same it's like that you know I know this is grinding or a braiding but it's like that you try not to let go the surface so you don't lose your reference if you came down every time pick the knife up on the back stroke what else things might not look so nice the point is I don't think dragging is the end of the world if you let up a little bit and now that I've been playing with the Defiler I don't know I'm not sure anymore dragging might not be the end of the world even if you don't let up a little bit we'll get to that in a minute but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it would your files last longer if you didn't let up a bit maybe well probably I mean I guess if you're throwing out a file a week you might want to reconsider your technique but to me if it is wearing out but I'm getting the results I need you know with a reasonable lifespan out of the file well it's a consumable tool like the hacksaw blade when the middle third is nice and shiny and completely toothless I'll throw it out and get another one or in the case of a file turn it into a scribe or something else useful oh and just for the record if you've got a lot of people around while you're filing dragging on the backstroke is usually more acceptable when working with softer materials aluminum brass that sort of stuff in fact I've heard theories that a light drag on the backstroke actually helps keep the file cleaner I don't know if I've noticed personally since I'm already a file Barbarian after all oh and while we're here keep your files clean you can't do clean file work if your tools are clogged with chips the closer you are to your finished surface the more often you'll probably want to clean it too and again you are moving less material but you're likely using a finer file now to mention if you don't clean it you'll likely see it in your surface you'll have what they call little pins or chips stuck in your file that'll leave nice long scratches on your shiny part if your file card is too big to get into a fine-toothed file use some soft wood to push and wipe across the teeth I hear bamboo works well but where am I gonna get bamboo since when I'm filing my file card is always in reach I tend to use this back edge of the file card itself it sort of push it across the teeth it usually does a good job of getting in there and cleaning them out I apologize I lost the video file here and by lost I mean I forgot to hit the record button I think everyone knows this but you can also use chalk to keep the file from clogging it won't stop the file from cutting of course but it does help to keep chips from getting stuck down in the oh and if we've got any people out there that have been getting bent out of shape seeing me manhandle my files touching the faces as I talk with my hands or just digging the fact that I'm setting them down on hardened surfaces well I've got just one thing to say to you I'm really glad to have you watching so what's this newfangled eye filer thing you're talking about back in my day we had to follow by hand oh I'm glad you asked and might I add your timing is absolutely impeccable I'd like to file a square hole in the middle of this piece of cold-rolled steel I'm shooting for about a half inch square that's somewhere between 12 and 13 Eminem's I've marked it and drilled out the bulk of the material for smaller holes at the corner is in a larger one on center to lead into this however allow me to demonstrate everything I know about this machine via a short non musical montage [Music] [Music] to the best of my knowledge I'm all set up I've adjusted the position of the file in the stroke so I'm working on the flat part of the file this file has got a bit of a taper towards the end I just kind of shifted it so I'm not working near that taper in this case I've got the Machine set as slow as it'll go I'm at about an eighty millimeter stroke length my hold downs are in place this machine has built in air I think some sort of diaphragm pump it's a nice touch just blows all the chips away keeps the work area clean what I really like about this thing when it's running this slow for a filing metal I don't need to wear my safety glasses I'll be right back I think I got something in my eye I'm far enough from my scribe lines I'm not too worried about overshooting them as I get closer I think I'd want to switch to a thinner file with this ice file in this size hole I can't really rotate the part to get the scribe lines in front of me like in my line of sight fact of the matter is I'm resisting the urge to knock all the handles off my hand files to convert them to machine files I do have some finer cut files that came with the machine and I'll switch to those as they get closer to finishing I'm getting really close to my scribe lines I'm gonna switch out to the smaller file but as I've been working through this I realized that I can just loosen the top clamp and rotate the work into a new position without having to break everything down of course I was finishing the last of the four sides when I realized that I is smart Bri vet tada means patented and boy these folks must have been awfully proud of their machine because they've got that plastered everywhere but you know it's a nice machine you may have already figured this out but this is an opus 140 and it it's completely obsolete what you're looking at here is a dead machine standing about twenty or thirty years ago probably more 40 as EDM was gaining popularity anyway filing machines began their march of death but you can still find these things well obviously right but they're not easy to get his law dictates that no matter where you live whichever machine you think you want it's always on the complete other side of the planet but thanks to the internet that's not necessarily a problem anymore shipping is the machine itself cost barely more than scrap metal price but I'm not gonna tell you how much I had to pay to ship this thing here this thing weighs a thousand pounds that's not a joke this thing is literally like five pounds shy of a thousand to maybe help put that in perspective this machine meant just for filing waste just as much as my mill my lathe weighs 1,300 pounds and I bought this completely sight unseen I mean except for a few Internet pictures because well I have completely lost my marbles allow me to explain just like everything else it was the Internet's fault see before the Internet the only dye filers I'd ever heard of were small benchtop ones in the hobby circles they were usually kits you'd build yourself ordered out of the back of a magazine then one day a fine gentleman posted a story and some pictures of a filing machine he found in the Midwest somewhere I think or maybe Michigan it was an opus I tried to dig that post up to no avail I do remember mention in the post of his opting out of an even larger version so if memory serves his must have been the opus 120 the ever so slightly smaller version of the 140 anyway to wide-eyed little me it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen I knew one day I just had to have one think of this as sort of my version of an old collectors car I didn't have any money of course barely had any files but what I did have was a dial-up modem I couldn't find much info on it but did find an entry on lathes code at UK which I've had bookmarked for going on 10 years now it's the European equivalent of vintage machinery anyway machine lust was really reason number two for the purchase truth be told real reason I bought it was so I could use this videos title you sit there and tell me that alone wasn't worth every penny as I'm getting closer to finishing this square hole I'm finding that a square file might not be the best way as I get into the corners I get two sides of the file that cut at the same time which despite the hold downs is trying to pull my part up off of the table it's really just starting to make Raggett more than anything else so I'm going to try to finish it off with a triangular file all right I think this is it the dimensions look right nothing left to do but clean it up and try it out I did end up going to smidge on a square but I think I'll be fine introducing the world's first two-headed ratchet hey why waste time taking out one spark plug at a time when you can get to what if you only have an odd number of spark plugs or tyre lugs you might ask well not to worry our R&D department is working round-the-clock on the single socket version maybe just to state the obvious if you're looking for a machine to really move metal well this isn't it the dye filer is a finishing machine I'm talking about steel here mind you brass aluminum plastics wood maybe that's a different story I mean even there there's still certainly not material hogs but you get what I'm saying on the spectrum of material removal if you had things like saws angle grinders and torches on the one end maybe lathes mills and drills in the middle a filing machine might be way over on the other end somewhere in the shadows with grinders perhaps and as far as being money makers not by a long shot I mean these things are up there with shapers fun to have might get you out of a bind once a year but for a hobby guy like me well it's just fun to have I have a feeling it'll be a useful addition I'm usually not in a rush to get anything done and it adds a few tricks up my sleeve and speaking of tricks they call this a filing and sawing machine because you can install a saw in place of the file this is a hacksaw blade and it's really more a visual aid that certainly would work but I've got a bandsaw that what could be really nice or thinner like fret saws turn this thing into a scroll saw the upper support arm on this machine has a draw bar it's this big knurled nut at the top which I'd assume is used to put saws in tension unfortunately I didn't get the sawing adapter that goes in place of the file holder but that might be my next project I bet a thin fret saw setup would be just marvelous to have the other thing I didn't get is the saw blade support it's like a third arm that attaches to the dovetail there in the back again from the manual it appears to support the saws on the back edge but that should be easy enough to make I think the other thing I've seen people do with these machines online mind you this is the first time I'm seeing one of these in real life is to add a dovetail slide to the table mount high speed steel in the upper support and use these machines for slotting like cutting key ways the way a shaper would only vertically this machine should have a three-inch capacity probably if used for slotting anyway I'm getting ahead of myself I'm really happy with how this turned out I don't know if that was really any faster than filing it out by hand maybe a little bit faster I'm still figuring this thing out so I wasn't particularly aggressive with the cutting so potentially faster but certainly with a lot less sweating involved the thing I really like about it this is hard for me to check but none of the filed edges are rolled over they're nice and flat and look like they're pretty square I don't really have a square small enough to get in there I'd have to sweep an indicator across that but the table is set to zero in both directions speaking of which if you're wondering why these are called die filers well to the best of my knowledge they were pretty good for shaping forming an adding draft to tooling two dies as in punches and dies again all before EDM came around this table swings 15 degrees I believe in both directions so once you had your shape cut out you could come over to this machine and draft all of the cutting edges add clearance behind all of the cutting edges now although I bet that's fun on a small part like this but this machine has a 4-inch capacity I'd hate to be the fella having to do all that filing I haven't checked the tram the table is set to zero the cut looks pretty decent squareness wise I'm sure if I went down to finer files I could get a near polished surface on the inside well I'm rambling now it's usually a sure it's time to wrap things up but here's the thing I haven't been able to figure out granted I'm making this video to show off my new toy and shoot the poop here in the garage but what really got my gears going is this whole filing mechanics thing if you recall way back to chapter 1 of this video we said pulling a file backwards across your work would lead to its early demise but this thing this machine shows no mercy at all in the backstroke I mean I got it with three or four of the original factory files and they're still cutting these files are branded the same exact files shown in the operator's manual I assume these are what came with the machine I guess they could have been bought later or it's possible they haven't seen much use but at over forty years I mean come on what are the odds of that and best I can tell the file teeth look exactly like any other file teeth I've seen other than the form you know being square on both ends so they're easier to mount they don't appear to have anything particularly special to them like no special tooth form that might make them specifically machine only files not that I can see anyway on the machines slowest speed at sixty strokes per minute I can sort of let up pressure when the machine has gone through its back stroke at effectively a stroke per second I can sort of keep up any more than that and there's no way someone's letting up on the back stroke while this thing is cutting with all that said I'd love to know what you think is dragging a file an old wives tale if it isn't what is it about machine files that allows them to take the abuse leave a comment if you know or have a theory anyway hope you enjoyed this long-winded tour of the newest edition and as always thanks for watch on the off-chance you don't know the guy and you enjoy watching metalworking be sure to check out atom of a bomb 79 now that guy that guy is really into files sure doesn't seem to be a lot to it at first glance does their but I'm picking things up the more I use it scratch what I said earlier this die filer is a lot faster than doing it by hand without it I would have their I say it died violin thanks for watching

Channel: This Old Tony

Views: 873,015

Rating: 4.9503994 out of 5

Keywords: filing machine, sawing machine, die filer, opus filing machine, metal files, metal cutting files

Id: 6lxJ3E_UjtY

Length: 23min 40sec (1420 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/funnystuff79]

Hahah This Old Tony, he’s a hoot, his videos are always funny although you have to pay attention when he goes off on a tangent.

[u/amunak]

I just watched a 20 minute video about filing.

That's a thing I'll never do, it's something I'm not interested in...

But it was a cool video. Thanks!