Friedrich Dick Knife Escapement File, #5

This Friedrich Dick knife escapement file is ideal for your most delicate filing and shaping tasks, for smoothing tiny details, and for creating inside cuts. Use this file for accessing narrow openings, angled joints and small features such as prongs. It has flat sides and edges with one edge thicker than the other so that the sides angle inward. With teeth on both sides and on the narrow edge, this double-cut file tapers to a fine point. The smooth wider edge helps protect set stones and adjacent structures against incidental contact with cutting surfaces.This file has a German cut #5; German-cut files are graded by the number of teeth, counting teeth parallel to the long axis of the file. German cuts start coarser than Swiss and go finer, offering more increments for more precise cutting. In all cut styles, the higher the number, the finer its cut.A double-cut file features two sets of evenly spaced teeth set in two directions, one at a slightly different angle than the other. Double-cut files are designed to cut more aggressively, maximizing the work of each stroke to remove more metal with fewer strokes. At the end of the stroke, the file should be lifted from the workpiece and repositioned for the next stroke; dragging the file backward against the metal can mar the metal and damage the teeth.Escapement files are narrower and thinner than standard needle files with shorter cutting surfaces and longer, square handles. Effective on gold, silver, platinum, titanium, steel and other metals, escapement files are best suited for work that requires little metal removal.Among the finest jewelers' files in the world, Friedrich Dick files are made of tough chrome/tool steel alloy and precisely machined to yield sharp corners and fine points. These files have deep-cut teeth that provide efficient, uniform stock removal and are 66–67 HRC hardness for exceptional service with minimal care.