The brush to use on files is called a card brush
Definitely, from what I remember using a brass brush on a file is a pretty good way to wreck it and if my metalwork (shop?) teacher caught us using anything other than the card brush we would be given a stern lecture about how not to destroy his files. (filing aluminium without using a lubricant was also a fairly dangerous thing to risk getting caught doing)
I'm amazed at the things people say & believe sometimes.
Please explain how soft, fine brass wire tips are going to damage the high-carbon steel of a file? Considering that the file can cut into solid brass all day and not get blunt.
As opposed to the hardened spring steel of any kind of steel wire brush. You _can_ use a steel wire brush, if you're careful to only run parallel to the file grooves. Which you do if you're trying to remove stuck swarf. Go the other way and you might as well file hardened steel (ie throw the file away, because you just ruined it.)
The card brush is useful because the bristles are both short and mounted in a flexible base sheet that allows them to tilt. So it's a way to apply a stiff but limited force to stuck swarf. But I don't bother with them - just one more rarely used special tool I can do without.
Personally to clean files I never use anything but soft brass wire brushes, and kerosene as a releasing/penetrating lubricant (because it's cheaper than WD40.) If some metal has stubbornly stuck, then run the tip of a scriber along the file grooves that need cleaning.
Removing surface rust is a different problem to stuck swarf, since it's all over all surfaces. Needed some scrubbing across the grooves too, so definitely only with a brush much softer than the steel.
Actually it was surprising. I don't know what wear-state the files were in before they were left to rust in a tub of rainwater for a while. But after scrubbing the rust off (and high-carbon steel seems to rust less than other steels) the files were all very sharp, like near new. Maybe a little rusting is similar to the acid-etch sharpening method?
And though I've never tried acid-etch (keep meaning too), I don't know why some people can't see how it would work. The solution doesn't preferentially eat corners, it takes off _surface_. So, think of a triangular point, but with the point slightly rounded. Now remove a little of all surfaces. Yes, it reduces the radius of the rounded bit, and can re-create a sharp point.
Btw, I had some more contact with the people who tossed that Tektronix digital video gen. And did score some other assorted bits and pieces, more on that later. But the answer to the mystery is that the owner was a hoarder, the Tek was something he bought at an auction, and no he didn't have the rest of an editing suite to go with it. Which was a great relief in a way, since the first person I spoke to with good English mentioned they'd already sent piles of stuff to recycling, and I was getting pretty depressed wondering if some really nice things had been scrapped. Still wish I'd seen the house though. Always satisfying to see a _worse_ hoarder's pile than my own.
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