Machines Couldn't Copy This Craft Until the 1930s!

Every file that ever cut metal had to have its teeth struck into it one blow at a time. In today's Age Skills History episode, we step into the last hand-file-cutting workshops of Polhausen in Germany's Bergisches Land, where blanks came in bright from the forge and left covered in thousands of hand-cut teeth. Watch the full process. Blanks bevelled at the vice, annealed in the kitchen hearth, then struck by hammer and chisel on an oak block while a footstrap holds the work down. A craft so precise that a skilled cutter could space 20 teeth per centimetre by feel alone. To record the old methods, the last hand-file-cutters came together here once more. The workshop had stood unused for ten years and had not changed in that time. After filming, it was moved with all its fittings to the Rhineland Open Air Museum at Kommen. On the rack at the end wall lie five kinds of file, different in size and profile, ready for work. The wooden clogs in the shelf below were the winter footwear. The blanks brought in are five-inch, three-square saw files, the same pattern still used today for sharpening saw teeth. Straight from the forge and the grinding shop they cannot yet take a cut, so they are set aside for preparation. The cutter's hammers range from 250 grams to seven pounds and all have short handles curved forward. Directly behind the bench that runs the length of the window wall, the cutting blocks of solid oak are sunk 70 centimetres into the ground. The grindstone at the back wall came from a cottage in the Eschbach Valley, taken over once it had worn down to 1.20 metres across and was no longer wanted there. The cutter works astride a three-legged stool so he can sit right up against the block. The iron plate set into the top of the block serves as his anvil. Every blank has to be prepared before it can be cut. On saw files, the edges are first drawn down with a scouring file, since forging does not always leave them perfectly straight. For this, a spring holder is clamped in the vice, a two-armed leaf spring carrying a sliding wooden block that supports the point of the file. Down between the vice jaws it ends in beak-like jaws that grip the tang. Now the saw files are bevelled on the anvil plate, which is made non-slip with a piece of postcard. Once the edges are oiled with a burnishing leather, the files are laid out in pairs and held down by a foot-operated strap. Along with the hammers, the cutting chisels are the file cutter's most important tools. The edge of these small flat chisels is hard enough to drive sharp notches into file steel. For bevelling the edges, the smallest hammer is enough. It can cut the fine teeth into the narrow arises, even though the files are still soft. Releasing the strap with the foot lets the next edge be turned upward, and the tightened strap presses the work firmly down again at both ends. Bevelling the arises of three square files was once given to school children and women, who prepared blanks in the afternoons for the men to finish the following day. In these family workshops, the work of the cutting room was closely bound up with life in the house. Before the faces can be cut, every blank must be annealed. For this, the kitchen hearth was normally used. Unlike hardening, annealing calls for slow heating up to a dull red. A rack holding about 18 small files is laid straight into the fire over the grate. Annealing takes up to half an hour and removes the brittleness from the steel, so the teeth can be struck more easily. The well beside the house, like the whole property, dates from 1876. A worn out grindstone carrying the well house serves as the shaft cover. House, workshop, and stable were all supplied with water from here. For their own needs, the file cutters of Pole House in usually kept a small holding on the side, worked mainly by the women. Unlike the slate clad living quarters, the barn and shed here are simply boarded. An annex of the small workshop building once housed one or two cows. The buyer lay behind the back wall of the workroom, where the grindstone is now being set turning. One of the cutters needs a fresh edge on a chisel that has gone blunt. It takes two men to get the heavy stone moving with the treadle, which is set at floor level. The edge ground on this water-wetted rim of the sandstone wheel is called the bevel. It has to be ground on both sides in a narrow, bright strip, so that the blade runs out to a fine point. Chisels for coarse file teeth are ground double beveled, with both faces at the same angle. Single beveled chisels, used for fine teeth, finish asymmetrically, with one side ground back more than the other. An experienced cutter could dress his chisels, so that one edge lasted for about five dozen files. In the kitchen, the saw files softened over a low fire have now annealed far enough to be taken out. The hearth was used even while meals were cooking, and the housewife put the batches in and took them out, one lot often following the next. Annealed files must cool slowly, so they are set down in the cutting room on the ring of the little cast iron stove. For the next sturge, in which the scale has to come off, a curved holding block is clamped in the vice. For preparing blanks, the cutters need scouring files, which they keep in quantity. To keep them biting, they have to be re-cut every two to three weeks. Under the scale the bright metal comes up, and the surface is smoothed at the same time. The arm of the holding block carries several rests for files of different sizes. A true smooth surface is essential if the teeth are to be struck at even spacing. Even after the cutting machines came in, saw files still had to be done by hand. Until the 1930s, machines could cut the tapered three-square body only very imperfectly. Once enough blanks are ready, the anvil plate on the cutting block is set up. In the middle of the plate sits a grooved lead bed, and the cutter deepens one of the grooves with a three-square iron. Laying a scoured saw file into it, he checks whether it is held solid along its whole length. If dirt has collected in the groove, the point of an old tang is flattened and used to scrape it clean. A freshly ground chisel is not yet fit for use. The grindstone has only formed the main bevel. The small bevel, the actual cutting edge, still has to be put on. For that, a Belgian whetstone is used first, its surface wetted with water. The stone is very fine, and the slurry it throws off mixes with the water into a thin grinding paste. Rubbing brings the two sloping faces of the edge together in one sharp centre line. The remaining wire edge is then stropped off on an oilstone, notched along its narrow side. The cutter tests with the pad of his index finger whether the bevel stands correctly. At their blocks in front of the windows, the cutters sit side by side in a row through the working day. In earlier times, most had specialised in particular patterns, of which there were an enormous number by shape, size, purpose and cut. Between the stools and the grindstone, only a narrow passage is left to the rack at the end wall. In three square files alone, for sharpening cross-cut saws, pit saws, band saws, bow saws, frame saws and the rest, there were 22 different patterns between 4 and 12 inches long. The face of the three-pound cutting hammer and the small head of the chisel are rubbed from time to time on the wood of the block to take the polish off them. The cutters recalled that in the first weeks of the three-year apprenticeship, the hammer often slipped and caught the fingers. After years of practice, they grew so sure that, so it is said, they could read the newspaper while working. When the teeth on one face are finished, they are rubbed over with charcoal to stop lead from the bed working into them. Once the next face has been scoured bright again, a felt roller gives it a thin film of oil. In the lead bed, the point of the file is held down by a small block, over which the front of the strap passes. To make the chisel stick between thumb and forefinger, its blade was once made tacky with spruce resin. Every hammer blow must fall with exactly the same force. The cutter manages this by keeping his upper arm against his body and moving only the forearm. The teeth, always begun at the point of the file, are struck with the chisel leaning slightly toward him. They run across the face at about 60 degrees. This is the third and last side to be prepared with the scouring file. The film of oil makes it easier to slide the chisel into position for each blow. The first strokes are set carefully, and after that the normal striking rhythm takes over. Saw files belong to the metalworking tools with close, sharply biting teeth. In sharpening saw teeth, what matters is working the points and angles out as crisply as possible. That is why a single beveled chisel is used for saw files. Each stroke throws up a burr ahead of the chisel on the toothed surface, and that burr gives the bite for the stroke that follows. The chisel is simply pushed up against the ridge already raised. Experienced cutters could work almost entirely by feel. Every stroke has to land full, sinking into the iron with the whole width of the edge and without skidding. A day's work on 5-inch saw files with about 20 teeth to the centimetre came to three dozen pieces. Twenty dozen earned a weekly cutting wage of seven tailors in 1913. By 1934, the same work paid 30 marks. Running a thumbnail over the finished file shows whether the teeth stand at even spacing. The second block is set up for larger files of round section. Ten-inch round files are given a fairly coarse tooth known as a bastard cut. It is laid on in separate bands side by side. The lead bed on the anvil plate is shaped to the profile of the file. For cutting the teeth on these narrow bands, a medium hammer of three pounds is enough. Gripped in the fist, its curved handle beds into the heel of the hand and allows very exact control. Round files, used in machine shops for working curved parts, are among the hardest to cut. The cutter braces his chisel hand with the little finger as he moves the double bevelled chisel along the band, so it cannot wander offline. When he reaches the end at the tang, the next band is rolled up and oiled. Since the file overhangs the plate at both ends, the small holding block can be left out here and the strap simply lies across the two ends. Altogether, the cutter lays teeth on eight bands in the first pass. Between them, eight more bands are left bare for the moment and must now be prepared at the vice. While the annealing scale is rubbed off and the surface smoothed, care is needed not to damage the teeth on the bands already finished. Each time the file is rolled on a step, the flat scouring file has to be worked carefully to and fro between two neighbouring toothed bands. Against the bright bands, the toothed ones stand out clearly. The backs of half-round files and the so-called bird's tongue files, with their pointed oval section, are worked in much the same way. Chisels with a curved hollow edge did exist and suited round work better, but they were not used by the hand cutters of Polhausen. Now the bands left bare are taken in turn. Where the chisel was set leaning to the left, it is now carried across the file at the opposite slant. Between the teeth of neighbouring bands, this creates zigzag lines, which make the round file bite so effectively on metal surfaces. Although this cutter had not worked at his trade for twenty years, he had lost neither his eye nor his steady hand. The wooden blocks are set with the tough-end grain uppermost. A thick layer of moss was packed underneath when they were sunk into the ground, giving the anvil plate a barely perceptible spring that helps the blows drive home. The last file cutters in Polhausen came from families that had followed the trade for several generations. This man was the only one still working at the time of filming. He had changed over to machine cutting in good time, yet he was in no way behind the others in hand skill. The files in hand here are twelve-inch hand files, or square files, part of the standard kit in any locksmith's shop. In the plain grades, with flat faces and straight single cuts, production passed to machines at an early date. These, however, are square files with the difficult double cut, two rows of teeth laid crosswise over one another. Setting a crate down as a seat in front of the block would once have been unthinkable. Cutters who spent ten hours a day at the bench needed a seat matched to their own height. The correct use of hammer and chisel depended on it. For the first row, the lower cut, now almost finished, the chisel leans from upper left to lower right. To lay the upper cut over it, the cutter moves his seat to the other side. The raised burrs have meanwhile been stripped off the toothed face with a flat file, and the chisel is set at the opposite slant, its edge now running from upper right to lower left. With the sharp burrs removed, the chisel can be drawn back after each blow and pushed along the lower cut until it catches the next ridge. The second row crosses the first and divides it into fine, narrow teeth. Of the patterns with complicated cuts, scarcely more than six could be made in a day. Most cutters were skilled enough to make any pattern that was called for. Square files are cut on the anvil plate itself, with a zinc sheet laid over it to protect the finished teeth. Here the cutter draws the lower cut smooth, then oils the face and lays the file out on the zinc. The double cut produces countless small teeth, which give a properly made square file its very sharp bite. A further advantage is that the teeth do not clog. Because deliveries were due weekly, work in the cutting rooms was driven by the count, and to be sure, the quantity was ready for Friday. The day's output was tallied every evening. Charcoal dust had to be brushed out of the finished saw files before they could be packed for the journey to the manufacturer. When women and children helped with this, it is said to have brought lively talk and cheerful singing. As they left the workshop, the files were by no means ready for use. At the works, the annealed steel first had to be hardened again by heating and quenching. As with every other stage, there were specialists for this, who before the factory system came to the burgisious land had worked on their own account. After hardening came straightening, in which files that had warped were trued up again. To protect the teeth in transit, the files were wrapped in newspaper, half a dozen at a time. Bundles of six also made counting and settling up easier. Sixty-four bundles make 384 files, packed into the delivery basket. Freshly cut files were covered with cloths to keep the damp off them. The blue apron belonged to the cutters' working dress, and was always taken off before going out. On the hour's walk through the Eschbach valley to Remscheid, there were trees with low forks where the basket could be rested. When the cutters came home again, they brought back their wages and with them the work for the week ahead.