Thank you all for weighing in.
So I went with evaporust, being nervous about an acids effect on such fine
teeth. Several hours in a coldish garage works well; I just put a few back
that didn't get enough time. There didn't seem to be any value in cleaning
grooves first with brass, maybe because they are so fine and difficult to
follow that the grooves just clog. The portions with rust are darker but
with little noticable loss in cutting ability. They are still quite
serviceable, and now oiled as well.

On Jan 11, 2019 1:34 AM, "David Nighswander" 
wrote:

Don makes a good point. Scrape the rust off of the file with whatever
method you prefer before immersing it in any acid. The rust will block the
action of the acid and create pits in the steel where the acid can attack
the uncovered steel. Much better to prevent the rust in the first place but
if that was easy we would all be doing it already.

Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows
10

From: Don Schwartz<mailto:dks@t...>


No doubt it works. But vinegar is acid. It will indiscriminately attack
good metal as well as rust. Not sure that's desirable. If the files are
dull, vinegar might be the thing to do. But how will you know that
before the rust is removed? I will stick with my method of de-rusting
first, then checking the files to see if they're sharp before subjecting
them to an acid bath. No, Evaporust isn't cheap. But neither are good files!


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