t. palermo on hand filing procedure

Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 22:00:06 -0400
From: Tom Palermo 
Subject: Re: [Frame] Tubing notchers ...

Those Harbor Freight things are wack (as in wack bamma). The cheap ones
I've seen don't have a proper tube block or real v-block to hold the
work piece. Instead they have a "Vee" block made from two pieces of flat
plate and a u-strap to clamp the tube down.

I use either a the lug I'm building the frame with or tubemiter.exe to
mark the miter. Then I use a hack saw to chop out about 95% of the
miter. Then I use a half-round bastard cut file (8" or 10" - sometimes
both) to finish the miter. Finally, I take the mating tube, wrap it in
coarse grit emory cloth (this would be about an 80 grit) and pull and
twist across the mitered tube to get the miter nice and dialed. Miters
take about 10 minutes a piece now that I've been doing it for a little
while. Yes, a mill would be nice but a clapped out B-port is $1500. A
nice set of files and a decent hacksaw will do wonders and save you a
bundle of cash. I also think doing something entirely by hand forces the
builder to become intimately familiar with whatever task they are doing
and more than likely, better at it over the long run.

Good Luck,
Tom

--
Tom Palermo