At one time, rasps were in every shop – everyone from cabinetmakers to luthiers to patternmakers used them to shape wood. Even today, whether roughing out a leg or fine-tuning a delicate feature, you just can’t get along without them. There are plenty of rasps on the market, from budget priced to very good and expensive machine-made rasps. They will all do the job, but using a high quality hand stitched rasp – like the Liogier Rasps – is simply a joy.
This Liogier 8" Rat Tail Rasp #13 (Fine Cut) is a tapered round rasp stitched right to the tip the shape, reminiscent of a rat’s tail and hence the name. The fine cut rasp is excellent for enlarging holes (easier to use than reaching for a larger drill bit) and shaping spiral work on spindles and round mortises.
The Liogier workshop is located southwest of Lyon, France, where Noel Liogier continues the century-old family tradition of making high quality hand stitched rasps. Liogier uses only carefully selected steels cast in France to its specifications. All forging, rolling, cutting, annealing, grinding and polishing are done in the purest tradition, using methods and procedures that have proven themselves for many decades. All of this is done in preparation for the creation of the teeth – the longest, most accurate and sensitive of all the operations and one that requires great skill. The goal is to produce a rasp with thousands of teeth, hand stitched one by one using specially made hammers and punches to create a tool of unparalleled performance. Lastly, the tool is heat treated to the required hardness that will make your hand stitched Liogier rasp close to perfection.
Explanation of Stitching: Grains are numbered from #1 (the coarsest) to #15 (the finest).