Filing rest

[peatoluser]

I had wanted to make a filing rest for some time, and inspired by the one shown on deanofid's site here

http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/filingrest/filingrest.html

i came up with my own design. what makes it diferent from others i've seen is the way of setting the height of the rollers.
I reasoned that 99% of the time it's used to file a standard hex or a square. say 1/8 or 5/16 but very rearly 0.270".
so instead of using a screw to adjust the height, the roller support simply slides up and down and rests on a block to give the required height.
Stamp the a/f size on the block and you have a very simple way of repeatability of size without having to measure and adjust every time you use it.
I just placed a 3/8 piece of scrap under the slide, filed two flats on a piece of bar, measured the resulting A/F size and then worked out how much to file off the bottom of the roller support to get a standard A/F size. From there, it's easy to calculate and make a set of blocks to cover most common sizes.

setting height

and filing flats on a slitting saw arbor

I made a spare set of rollers for small hex sizes. My effort is quite ...erm...utility based , but i thought i'd post it as i've not seen this method of adjustment for filing rests before and thought others may find it useful

regards

Peter

 

[ShopShoe]

I like the blocks ----- easy and repeatable. Thank you for your post.

--ShopShoe

 

[steamer]

I like it! I made on for my lathe and wonder why I didn't sooner!

I used a Micrometer thimble...but gage blocks are way faster for common sizes.

Dave