# Hand-stitched rasps



## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

For my first message, by way of introduction, here is a short video showing what I do.


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

Welcome aboard, this is some beautiful work. makes you appreciate the tools when you see what work was put into making them


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## paratrooper34 (Apr 27, 2010)

c'est magnifique!


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## brtech (May 26, 2010)

I was surprised to see how easily the teeth in the rasp are punched. It seems to take so little force to punch it. You show the hardening after the punching, but the un-heat treated blank seems incredibly soft.


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## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

Right Brtech, steel is not that hard before heat-treatment. The key is also to resharpen the punch (we call it "grain of barley" because of the shape we do it in order to obtain the correct shape of teeth) very often.
The harder part actually is to be steadily accurate in the power you put in the hammer blow so the hight of the teeth remains perfectly equal, otherwise the rasp is just worth to be scrapped.


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## ChuckM (May 12, 2008)

Someone has done a review on the Liogier vs the Auriou rasps: http://www.woodworkforums.com/f12/group-buy-liogier-rasps-france-141141/

Don't know the 20% discount mentioned in the price chart is still valid, though.


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

G'day All

I'm not certain if this fits in with the advertising guidelines (I think it should, as it's non-profit). I can see no reason why you guys can't participate in our Group Buy from Liogier, and enjoy that 20% discount. You could send your money to a trusted member, for forwarding to France, and my spreadsheet can keep it all very organised for you. We are midway through our Group Buy, and have submitted two orders so far. I may be in Sydney, but email is email.

The summary from our reviewer (Claw Hama - a respected professional Furniture Maker) was "superior to the Auriou, and less expensive"). A few weeks later (a few days ago) he went on to say that "the Liogier #8 took off more timber in less time than the coarser Auriou #6".

What do you think?

Cheers, FF


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## JSilverman (Mar 31, 2011)

is there a US outlet/distributor of these rasps?

thanks


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

I don't know if there is a distributor in the US, but Liogier could answer that. If there is, the prices won't be anything like what we can get them for in the Group Buy (20% off the web price), and even more importantly they can't stock the whole range (probably only a very small part) or do any custom work (such as smaller curved rasps e.g. Modeller's).


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## JSilverman (Mar 31, 2011)

FF
how can I find out more about this group buy thing? does it work for "Yanks" or just for Ausies?

thanks
Jeff


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

Hi Jeff

Yes, it's for the US as well. The US guys would send their payments direct to Liogier in France. For the sake of a better exchange rate and less/no fees one of your members could accumulate all the money and send one payment through Forex or similar. If there are only a small amount of orders, then it could still be charged to a credit card by Liogier. To give an example of what I mean, I use OzForex, and the minimum transfer is $2000. The exchange rate seems to be perhaps 2% better than credit card, and with no fees at all.

My role is to organise all the orders, send out the pricelist spreadsheet etc, which can be done by email anywhere in the world of course.

The International Freight to the US will have to be worked out, but should be pretty good. Please note that any prices for freight on the Liogier website refer to delivery within Europe only. What we are doing for the Aussie members is getting them all sent to me, to economise the freight, and then I am going to post them to the Aussie members. It may turn out that freight to the US is cheap enough to send them direct to US members from France, rather than send them to one of your members for on-posting.

You can send me an email to brettinkat "at" gmail.com and I can forward to you the pricelist.

HTH, but happy to answer other questions.

Regards, FF


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

Lovely to see these skills are still practiced. Thanks for giving us an insight into the making of these great tools.


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

That was five minutes very well spent. Good rasps have been on my wishlist for a very long time.

What's a good all around rasp for a furniture maker?


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

Hi RG, I'm no expert on this at all, but I know that Noel (Liogier) would say 10" or 12" Cabinet Makers, and if you want one only rasp then probably 8 to 10 grain. When following one rasp with another finer one (perhaps even of a different shape) I know that Noel recommends an increase of 3 in the grain size. So you might go Cab.Mak 8g, Half-Round 11g and Modellers 14g for example.


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

Thanks. That's about where I was thinking.


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

*A few words about the coatings:*
The Liogier rasps come in three finishes:

*1.* "Traditional" which is high carbon steel (as you would expect, and like other leading Rasp makers). These are 60 Rockwell hardness.

*2.* "Titan" which is the same steel but sent off for a coating which increases the cutting edge hardness to 72 Rockwell, and Liogier states that it doubles the life of the rasp. As you can see on the website, this looks like a metallic finish.

*3.* "Sapphire" gets a similar treatment to Titan, but the edge hardness is a whopping 3800 Vickers. Tungsten Carbide is 2283 Vickers according to Wikipedia. This finish is like an Electric Blue, hence the name. Again, the website states that this gives a 4x life to the rasp.

For me, one of the most important features of the coatings, is the extended life for only a small(ish) % increase in price. These tools are not quite as easy to procure as lobbing into the local hardware (and ours are crap, believe me), so I want the tool to last as long as possible (apart from the fact that it makes long term economic sense).

*A hugely significant benefit of the coatings is that they don't rust, and assist with keeping the tool clear of chips. *Cleaning resins and other moisture from a bare steel tool is imperitive.

In his review on our forum, "Claw Hama" (Mark, who is a professional furniture maker) was comparing a brand new Auriou #6 with a Liogier #8 (Traditional finish). They were both 12" Cabinet Maker's. A few weeks later, when he was building this fabulous table, he used them both again. He found the the finer grain Liogier took off more timber in less time than the coarser Auriou. Obviously the finish was smoother, as well.

Out of around 70 Rasps ordered so far, our members have specified 4 Traditional (1 member), 3 Titans (1 member) and all the rest are Sapphires.

Another of our members (who is very well known in your forum) had a special request for rasping inside Dovetail Saw handles. He wanted a small curved rasp for this task, and this is not a standard item (the Curved Rasps are the same profile as a Cab. Makers). "Oui, monsieur, no problem - send me some pictures and I will make a recommendation". It looks like he will be getting three Modeller's 6" in grains 9-12-15, and they will all have a concave curve (the Curved is Convex, and stitched on the half-round side only). The beauty of hand crafted tools eh?

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but Liogier can stitch for right or left handed people (no price diff). How cool is that?


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## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

To catch up with all yesterday's posts :

First thing first, thanks to all for your very kind comments !

JSilverman : no, unfortunately till today, I have no reseller nor in the US, neither in Canada. Nevertheless, I can confirm that this FenceFurniture « down under » guy is currently doing a great job organizing a group order in Australia.

RGtools : if this is you're first Liogier rasp and you intend to use it in furniture making, the choice is very clear : pick out a Cabinet Makers rasp, 10'' (250 mm), stitching grain #9. Once you will have use it for the first time, please send me an email to tell me what you think of it, I am always very interested in feedback from user-for-the-first-time.


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

I would be happy too.

How does your shipping work? I have only done one order from Europe and the customs killed me more than the tool I bought.


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

RG, yes we have to be careful with Customs here in Oz as well. Our situation is that if the package contents (including freight cost) is less than $1000 then there is no Import Duty of GST (which is the same as the Euro VAT but 10%). I have no knowledge of how it works in the USA, but perhaps one of your colleagues might?

The second situation with freight and charges is as follows:
I have recently imported to Oz some gear from Woodpeckers (via USPS) and some Colt Drills from Germany (via DHL Paket - which is basically Deutsche Post, who owns DHL). When using these "postal" services there were no "freight forwarding" charges, as the postal services do all of that themselves. However, when I recently imported some small drill press components from Wabeco in Germany they refused to use DHL Paket, and sent the goods via a freight forwarder (A. Hartrodt). When this package arrived they wanted more charges to move the package 1000 metres from the Airport to the warehouse and to "Customs Clear" it than the actual freight from bloody Germany! AND I had to pick up from the warehouse (3 hours away). The only benefit of using this method was that the goods were here within 2-3 days.

Liogier will be using La Poste (French Post Office) so I would be very confident that the *second situation would not apply*, and the goods would be delivered to the home of either each individual, or to your central receiver (if that works out to be cheaper for the freight component + domestic on-posting). For deliveries to Oz we are having the goods sent to a Central receiver (me) and then on-posted. The cost of the freight for that is between 3 and 5 Euros per rasp ($US4-7). The rates to the US would be significantly less I think, because of less distance, and greater frequency. We expect that the delivery time from France to Oz will be two weeks (as it was with DHL Paket).

What was the nature and value of the tool you imported, and do you remember what the customs charge was? It sounds as though the package may have been sent to you via a freight forwarder.

Cheers, FF


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

Oddly enough the tool I imported was a free one from a friend. He wanted me to review it since I helped trade ideas with him about how the tool should be in form and function. I listed the customs cost as his cost for sale (~$50 for a dovetail marker).

The shipping ended up running me about $102 because of shipping and customs charges. Possibly it's different between Spain and France? This friend is the same one that introduced me to your company for making fine tools. I went through UPS which I think was my mistake. I believe the post office would have been vastly cheaper.

I have another question that has nagged at me since I started looking at good rasps. What is the functional difference between the left and right handed versions of the tool? I ask because I think it will yield some insight in to there proper use.

Thanks for letting me pick your brain.

Ryan


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

Hi Ryan
First - I am not associated with Liogier - I am just organising a group buy for some Oz Woodies.

LH v RH is more a question for Noel Liogier, but I can only think that the rows of teeth are stitched in the opposite diagonal (if you know what I mean). I presume that in the video it is a RH rasp being stitched, and you can see the rows going up from left to right. I believe that LH would mean that they go up from right to left.

Using UPS would have been why you had the charges. They were charges applied at the US end right? That would mean no difference between Spain & France, but using s postal service would eliminate this.

HTH


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## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

What makes the difference between a LH or RH rasps is the orientation of the teeth, not of the row.
For a right-handed persons we orientate the teeth towards the right (when biting the wood) :








And the opposite direction for left-handers.
Whereas machine made rasps have teeth without orientation (I mean center orientated, towards the tip), this teeth orientation greatly improve two things : the chip removal and the bitting of the rasps, because when you use a rasp although the main movement is back and forth, there is a sligthly lateral movement too in the same time


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

Thank you, that makes so much more sense.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

The man himself! I'm so glad you're here. No offense, but until recently, I knew only Aurio. Now I have OPTIONS! Thanks! Al.


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## lwllms (Jun 1, 2009)

Rasps are good and I use them. What I really need, though, is good properly shaped carving gouges. British makers stopped properly shaping their gouges after WWII and good old gouges are difficult to find and sell for very high prices. Many Pfeil tools are properly shaped, some aren't, but Pheil uses crappy vanadium steel. I've got a Stubai gouge on the way to see what they're like but Stubai's sizes are limited. Is there a French company that makes high quality forged carving tools?


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## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

No, as far as I know there is no french producer of gouges left.
Which makes me feel, as a french hand tool maker, as an endangered species …


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

Our own Mads is a French tool collector, so guard your toolbox!


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## Liogier (Oct 26, 2011)

Here's a recent and rather positive review in a magazine you may know :

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/tools/new-to-the-usa-source-for-hand-cut-rasps


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## FenceFurniture (Oct 28, 2011)

Our first shipment of rasps arrived a couple of days ago - they are everything I thought they would be.* Just superb*. You can see the difference between some of the results here


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