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Matthew Smart wrote:
Lubricate them with first with mineral oil
Never tried that; good idea.
Clean them with wire brush or dremel metal brush attachment
dont use your best one for filing solder
You guys ever hear of a file card? It's a very short and tough bristled
brush specially made for removing foreign material from files. I should
add that I haven't actually tried this because I don't like using silver
solder for tuning. Last time I felt the need to drastically retune a
harp I used the method that Pat Missin used to recommend -- brass powder
mixed with epoxy (haven't checked to see what he recommends these days).
That worked quite well for me. Easy to apply without risking getting
solder on the adjacent reed plate. Apply a pile, let it cure and then
file or sand as needed. If you change your mind, an Exacto knife will
chip it off quite cleanly. It sounds, however, that Blu-tack has
overtaken solder in popularity for retuning.
I keep a separate one for that, it will get gunked up no matter what
I use cheap files for the work that gunks up files and reserve
high-quality files for fine work.