When to decide whether to use a file or a stone is all dependent on how much material you need to take off. Also, there are things I can do with certain files that I would not be able to achieve with a stone. For example, more recently I was handed a Tisas 1911 with removable iron sights and the customer had bought a Tru Glow front sight to replace the one he had a hard time seeing. What seemed like an easy task became one I had to spend an hour working on.
The front sight this customer had purchased was not meant for this firearm and when I informed the customer of this, they responded with "please just make that one work" despite it not being made for that firearm. The cut on the slide was very small and the front sight had too much material on it to just slide right in so I used a triangular shaped file because it gave me the correct angle I needed to begin removing material and form the shape I needed. For one or two spots I used the flat file but the square cut file did me no good and a stone would not have been able to get into this tiny angle. For this job I absolutely needed the right tool for the job and there was no way around it. Yes, I believe you can use a bastard cut file on metal and a smooth cut mill file on wood it just depends on what you are trying to achieve.
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