Hi again ladies and gentlemen (is there any lady btw? xD) Today, a quick hobby tip. How to clean your needle files (without screwing them up!). WARNING: I’ve said NEEDLE FILES! Not diamond files. Be aware, some chemicals can screw your diamond file, eating the glue that attachs the diamond particles to the file! Everyone knows that needle files don’t work very well when they are dirty and caked with debris. If you didn’t know, you should! To clean your files, use a small clean jar of choice. All you need to do is fill the jar with lacquer thiner and put your needle files in there!

For the ones who don’t know, the lacquer thiner is a mixture of solvents, used to dilute, dissolve and clean up of lacquer products. Typically too caustic for oil paints, lacquer thinner is often used additionally for removing inks on metal, and adhesive residue from a variety of surfaces. Lacquer thinner is very  strong and rapidly deteriorates many surfaces and fabrics Just put your clogged needle filesinto the thinner and close the lid to avoid the fumes. Just be cautious not to submerge the rubber handles of the files. Wait for an hour, remove the file and clean it off with an old thooth brush. Then, your files will be as good as new!

The lacquer thinner can be found on most of your favourite art supplies stores, and also in any hardware store.Whoever sells paints could sell lacquer thinner, among other solvents and thinners! Well, that’s for now, I hope this little tip can help you a bit 😉 Now, back to Real Life -.-

See ya soon! Reposted from http://nesbetminiatures.blogspot.com/2011/04/hobby-tip-cleaning-your-files.html?m=1 with permission of the page owner.