Before filing the teeth in your floats I suggest you attach the handles so the float can be easily held in a bench vise. Also, it is necessary to determine which side to file the teeth on, prepare the blank with layout dye, and scribe lines in the dye to mark the position of the teeth. Instructions for doing this are included with your floats and are also attached as a .pdf file on this blog. The pictures below are intended to be a supplement to the more detailed instructions provided with your floats. Your float should look like the picture below before you begin to cut the teeth.
1. Blank prepared for cutting teeth.
2. Proper filing technique for cutting the initial vee groove. Note the back edge of the file is 90 degrees to the face of the float.
3. Your float should look like this after filing the initial vee groove.
4. Proper technique for filing the gullet of the tooth. Note that the file has been rotated forward in order to slightly undercut the edge of the next tooth.
5. Close up view of the tooth partway through filing the gullet.
6. The first tooth is now completely filed.
7. Another view of the first tooth showing the depth of the gullet.
8. Proceed to the next tooth and continue filing using the same pattern shown above, moving toward the handle of the float.
9. View with 3 teeth cut.
10. Another view.
11. About half of the teeth are filed at this point.
12. Another side view.
13. All of the teeth are now filed in the blank and the float can now be sharpened.
14. This procedure should be followed whenever the float needs sharpening. Begin by coating each tooth with layout dye as shown above.
15. Use a flat single cut file and draw file across the teeth, removing only enough material so that the tip of each tooth is shiny all the way across. This operation is called jointing and ensures that all the teeth are exactly the same height.
16. Your float should look like this after jointing.
17. Re-coat each tooth with layout fluid as shown above.
18. Using the same technique used to file the gullets, file each tooth
just until all of the layout fluid is removed along the edge of the tooth. This makes a clean, sharp edge that is exactly the same height as every other tooth in the float.
19. The finished float ready for use.
Note: the bed float usually takes the longest to file since the most material needs to be removed. The cheek and edge floats are much faster, so don't get discouraged! Also, you may have noticed how similar this technique is to the technique used for sharpening saws; this is great practice for that and a very useful skill to have.
