Diamond files for hardened steel?

JF in MI

Well-known Member
Is a diamond impregnated file hard enough to work on hardened steel? If so, will they last? If not is there anything that will?
 
As in a hand file? Absolutely! They sell diamond hones for sharpening knives.

You "can" also use a diamond product in a power tool, such as a diamond hole saw, but that should only be done with continuous coolant flow.
 
JF: what are you trying to do? As Mike noted, diamond files will not remove much metal--even coarse ones will only work slowly. Carbide burrs are another way of removing hardened steel, but you have to be careful as it's easy to gouge things up or break them--they're brittle and don't like heavy side loads, especially in the small sizes. Like most tooling nowadays, there's lots of inexpensive Chinese stuff available, but as usual with such things quality is highly variable--some is excellent but much of it is garbage, especially the real lower-end stuff--it just doesn't last. I've worn out the cheapie "diamond" burrs in a few seconds--literally--some lasted less than the time it took to clean up one 1/8" diameter hole through 1/8" thick stock.
 
SON worked for a couple years assembling industrial gearboxes, BIG knes, some the size of full size pickup trucks, cars, 2-3, sometimes 4-stage gear reduction, used to power belt conveyors to move coal, iron ore, etc. MILES across country, stir sewage in sewage treatment plants, and there's a football stadium out west, in Colorado I think, the playing field is on wheels, moves out to the parking lot for maintenance, mowing, fertilizing, watering, it has 20 smaller gearmotors to move it than SON made.

Most of the gears were pretty well finished, ran quietly when assembled, but maybe once a week he'd get a gear with a dinged tooth and it would be noisey, he had a diamond file to smooth the ding. They bought the files in bulk, normally a single use item. The carburized gears were 60-70 Rockwell C Scale, so hard, REAL hard, for good wear life, but softer on the inside for shock absorption.

I have a BUCK brand diamond grit knife hone, kinda like a small whetstone, I wish it was bigger, fewer strokes needed to sharpen my knives, less wear on the hone.
 

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