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Is there any particulary way to take care of hobby files and mould line removers? Have owned mine for a while now and is having problems removing grime (unsure if its the right word) from the files and feel that my mould line remover has gotten worse with time. Any tips would be greatly apreciated.

Try something reusable and tacky such as silly putty or blu tac on the files, just ball it up and press it into the rough surface, you'll be surprised at how much lifts off.

If there's stuff more stubborn to remove, I daresay a soak in something like isopropyl alcohol will loosen it, just be careful of the handles if they've got anything plastic covering them, it might go melty.

There are two kinds of file

Diamond and Toothed


Cleaning Toothed - get a brass wire brush (easily sold at hardware stores/ebay/the like). All you have to do is brush the file with the grain so that the bristles will run down along the grooves and scrape out the material.


Cleaning Diamond - get a regular pencil rubber - the firm kind not the putty kind. Then simply rub the file over the rubber firmly. The rubber will clean out the material, though it will get fairly cut up as a result too.


Both will require regular cleaning since hobby materials are very soft and will clog them up quite quickly. The rougher/coarser the file the slower it will clog up, so you might find that different files clog up at different rates.





Mould line remover is just a metal strap, though it might well have dulled over time. I personally use a scalpel blade since I prefer how it can get into tiny spots, which the mould line remover can't get into. For a scalpel I just pop out the old blade, pop in the new one and then proceed to lacerate my thumb* until the blade has dulled just enough to be perfect to work with. I find perfectly sharp ones tend to be a little more likely to "catch" if the angle isn't perfect and if you're not slow, once they've cleaned a little bit they get to a nice sweet spot for a good while.










*Not directly nor deliberately I hasten to add! More just because the blade is super super sharp and any slippage or such easily leaves little score marks on the finger when holding parts.

I've used a wire wheel on my Dremel to clean green stuff, paint, and glue. Maybe not best for the long term life of the file, but super quick and easy.

For files I use a brass brush and a very stiff nylon paintbrush, a large one more suited for industrial use than fine painting, for clean up.

If your scraper has lost its edge, shouldn't be too hard to bevel it back with some sanding or filing. Mostly I use old x-acto blades like Overread. Retire them when they're not sharp enough to cut things cleanly anymore, dull them down with some rough sandpaper and they're perfect for scraping. Slap a sticker or dab of paint on the bottom of the blade so you don't mistake them for sharp ones.