File Card: Old Card Clothing Tacked to a Wooden Handle (Nicholson, 1878)

The workshop file card of the 1870s: a strip of old, worn-out card clothing tacked to a piece of wood with a handle shape at one end. The Nicholson File Company (1878) calls it the common way to clean the larger files, usually rudely made by the worker himself, and warns that the handle may split when it is tacked and that the clothing soon works loose. Nicholson gives no sizes, no wood and no tacks; those are unknown here. Source: W. T. Nicholson, A Treatise on Files and Rasps (Nicholson File Co., 1878), pp. 38, 73-74. Picture: Nicholson's plate of his own glued File Card (p. 38), for comparison; the tacked card itself is not drawn.

مبتدئ

An hour

التعليمات

Read Nicholson

"... by the use of a strip of old or worn out card clothing, tacked to a piece of wood, having a handle shape at one end—a device which is usually rudely constructed by the operator."

Shape the wood

Saw a piece of wood with a handle shape at one end and a flat face at the other for the card, and round the handle with the rasp. The wood and sizes are not given (unknown).

المواد لهذه الخطوة:

لوح خشب صلب1 قطعة

الأدوات المطلوبة:

منشار تخريم

مبرد خشن

أبعاد غير معروفة

Tack on the card clothing

Cut a strip of old card clothing to the face, teeth up, and tack it down round its edges. Tack gently: Nicholson warns that the handle often splits when it is tacked, and that the clothing soon comes loose.

المواد لهذه الخطوة:

كسوة التمشيط1 strip

تشكيلة مسامير تنجيد1 as required

الأدوات المطلوبة:

مقصّ جلود

مطرقة بمخلب

Using it

Clean a file at intervals while working and before it is put away: wood, horn and the like mix with oil in the teeth, bake hard when dry, and stop the teeth biting. Draw the card along the file to clear the filings. Pins stuck fast in the teeth are picked out with the soft-iron scorer, which is not built here.

History and honest limits

This is the card Nicholson set out to replace with his glued, recessed File Card (patented 12 February 1878): "if not split by the operation, becomes, after a short use, detached and troublesome." The wood, sizes and tacks are not given; a hardwood board stands for the wood and upholstery tacks for the tacks.