Learning from mistakes.

[mpcoppin]

I screwed up a bowie I was making from a rasp. So... I broke it to look at the grain.

Would you say this is course grain?

 

[C Craft]

I would say picture straight on the grain would be better to compare it too. But No, I don't think that is a course grain. It appears to be fairly refined! Here take a look at these examples!!


From the photo it is close to the bottom of this example. Which Is where you want to be!!

Here is another that has too large of grain in it! It is more like the top example in the stack!!

 

[mpcoppin]

This one should be a little clearer.

 

[EdCaffreyMS]

Grain looks pretty large to me. It's often difficult to get the grain where it needs to be when working with recycled materials. In the case of a rasp, it could be any number of alloys.

 

[JeremyBartlett]

My guess would be that the rasp is case hardened. If you look at both of your pictures there is a border where the blade is the thickest at the spine that is a different color and seems to be a much finer grain. A lot of the newer farriers rasps are case hardened unlike the full hardening of the old ones.