With a saw file, a little instruction, and some practice you can keep your saws cutting swift and straight. Whether your saw was bought new and has gotten dull over through use, or is a flea market find all saws eventually need to be sharpened. We find that any saw, even one sharpened by a beginner will almost always outperform a dull saw.

Our range of Vallorbe saw files reflects the file sizes we use in our own saw shop. We particularly like the Vallorbe saw files for their geometry - they have small arrises (the flat between the triangular sides of the triangle), which equates to a deep gullet and faster sawing. Saw files in general have larger arrises than other files and in our shop instead of a saw file we use a triangular needle file for any saw of 15tpi or finer. For larger saws (and their teeth) we also stock a machinists three square file, which has truly tiny arrises. It is a pricey file - which many people might not find necessary, but we like the result.

Vallorbe is a Swiss company, one of the largest file companies in the world, and still manufactures these files in Switzerland.

Our size recommendations are personal preferences. In general you want a file that fits in a gullet to half or less of the depth of the file width. Longer files work faster. Thinner files sometimes feel better. For coarser saw pitches please take a look at the larger file range by Corradi - link below.

Length refers to the entire length of the file not including the tang. Width refers to the width of the file at the widest point.

You should always fit a file to a handle for proper safe use; saw files have different tangs than regular files and therefore do not correspond with the usual handle size recommendations. Nearly all of the Vallorbe saw files use a #3 Skroo-zon handle, the three square uses a #4 (see below for the link). None of the Skroo-zon handles fit the needle file properly.