THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 413 



and placed it on a bench that will bring the teeth about as high 

 as " the pit of your stomach," put the shank of the file in a 

 handle not less than one foot long, and put it in as true as prac 

 ticable. The beginner will be able to hold his file more correctly 

 with a long handle than with a short one. Now, hold the file 

 firmly, so that it will not turn to the right nor to the left, and 

 file every tooth to a point ; and as soon as a tooth is filed to a 

 point, do not give it another stroke. Great care and skill are 

 necessary when filing with a triangular file, lest while one tooth 

 is being filed, the tooth on the opposite side of the file should get 

 filed off too much. Always make the strokes from you ; and 

 when a tooth is almost to a point, make each stroke with precision 

 and care, and rather slowly. 



THE PROPER ANGLE FOR FILING THE FACE OF THE TEETH 



618. For cutting across the grain, varies very much among 

 different filers. The work to be done with a saw must determine, 

 in a measure, the proper angle for filing the face of the teeth. 

 If the wood be hard, and knotty, and gnarly, the teeth must be 

 filed for chipping or removing the sawdust. And the best kind 

 of tooth for removing sawdust is one that is filed square across 

 on the face. But a tooth filed square across on the face of it 

 will not cut off the fibres of the wood well ; therefore, the face 

 of the teeth must be filed more or less diagonally. If filed very 

 diagonally on the face, the teeth will be very fleaming, or fleam- 

 pointed. (See TECHNICALITIES.) When filed of this shape, they 

 cut very fast, but they remove the core very slowly. Some men 

 prefer to file four teeth or six teeth very fleam-pointed, at an 

 angle of about forty or forty-five degrees on the face, and then 

 file one tooth square on the face for taking out the core, leaving 

 the point a little shorter than the others. For all kinds of work, 

 for hard and for soft wood, when a man keeps but one saw, if 

 the teeth be filed at an angle of about ten or fifteen degrees on the 

 face, it will be found to subserve the best purpose for hand-saws. 

 If a man keeps a slitting-s&w, his crosscut hand-s&w may be filed 

 a little more fleaming on the face of the teeth. When the wood 



