I've got a shelf full of good rifflers and decent rasps. Swiss-made, proper steel, the kind you order from a catalogue and wait three weeks for.

But the file I use most is a Nicholson half-round my father owned. Handle's cracked and I've never replaced it because his hand wore the groove in. It sits loose in the drawer. Every time I pick it up I think about replacing it with something that cuts cleaner, and then I don't.

It's not sentimental. It's that the thing works and I know exactly what it does. A new file has a personality you have to learn. This one I already know.

I've got a block of limestone on the bench right now that's fighting me. Ragged grain, inclusion running through it like a bad seam. The file handles it fine. I'll probably use it until the teeth go completely flat and then I'll have to figure out what to do with myself.