Tools Of The Trade Two

Before I get into my Rasp of Choice, here are a couple pictures of one of our knives.

They both show a pretty good view of the curvature of the blade. (I should have taken one showing how it actually fits in my hand... didn't think of that... sorry!)

Now- Rasps. There are LOADS of those out there. From "economical" (meaning really, really cheap,) to pricier ones that are not necessarily high quality either. I see that Jeffers has 4 to pick from, none of which I have tried. My favorite:

Savedge.

They stay sharp, are easy to clean and resharpen for a bit longer life, (cleaning/ resharpening a rasp means a wash in muratic acid,) they are not super heavy (means you will not be as tired out using it,) and they are not really wide- again fitting my funky hands just that much better. These ARE on the expensive side, but one rasp, even a "used" one from your farrier, would last your average horse owner for a LONG while.

There are other good ones out there. In "mud season" (right- like we have even HAD one of those for a while,) Dear Husband likes the Heller Rasp- it has wider teeth spacing and does not hold onto as much mud and muck. Mud and grit will burn a rasp out faster than taking a grinder to it, I swear.

A rasp to AVOID- or any tool made by this company, actually- is the Diamond brand. It is expensive, but heavy, and dulls up before you are through one hoof. You wind up doing about four times more work than you need to. (I give it a half a road apple rating. Its not even worth a whole piece of sh*t.) They have a whole line of tools- and every single one of them that I have tried has not met my standards.

Here is my rasp and handle:

A bit about handles: when I first began trimming, I could hold horse legs in the traditional farrier stance of a hoof between the trimmer's knees. As time wore on, and my body ground down (add in two LARGE children to that grinding,) it became increasingly painful to use my body as a tool. I had to make an adjustment in my tools as well.

I had started out using a big round handle on the end of my rasp, that allowed me to have pretty good balance using both hands, and made work easier. The change came in when I had to hold the leg with one hand, and do all my work with the other hand. That big handle (which I also forgot to get a picture of,) wore me slam out. I switched over to a small wooden handle. (OK, I confess- I swiped the handle off of Dear Husband's rasp in desperation one day, and have not looked back.-- Well, wait. I need to confess AGAIN. My back has been so utterly miserable the last six or eight months that I might -*MIGHT*- trim one hoof once in a great while. I decided that being able to WALK was a GOOD thing. So there you have it-- I am rather "retired" these days.)

BUT- before I retired all the way here, that smaller wooden handle served two purposes. It kept the pointy end (AKA; the Tang of the rasp) from poking the horse in the belly (a bad BAD thing), and it kept a decent balance preventing my arm from feeling like it was going to fall off from extra work.

One more note: New Rasps Are SHARP. I have scars all over my hands from new tools. Dear Husband does not. He wears gloves, saying this manual labor stuff just messes up his delicate digits. I hate gloves. Pretty much end of story there, as my digits were never what you could consider "delicate" by any means!

Now onto the proper use of a Rasp for the administration of the Rasp Enema. (Come on now, you just KNEW I could not possibly let this post go without talking about that, didn't you?)

Step One: Bend offender over your truck.

Step Two: Grab your Rasp, and insert swiftly to the tang.

Step Three: Repeat as often as needed.

Step Four: Toss that sucker in a red bag, and dispose of in a medical waste container.

The sharper and better quality the Rasp, the more effective the results.