Rasps: Teeth Raised One at a Time with a Pointed Punch

A rasp is a coarse file whose teeth stand separately instead of in continuous rows. Each tooth is raised by driving a pointed punch into the face of the blank at uniform distances. Because the teeth stand apart, a rasp clogs less than a cut file on soft material such as wood or a horse's hoof. The blank is forged, annealed and ground like a file blank, and the finished rasp is hardened like a file: coated against scale, brought to a dull red heat and plunged into water, with the tang tempered so it will not snap. Machine-made rasps have uniformly stamped teeth, which line up row behind row and leave deeper marks; slightly uneven hand-cut teeth avoid this.