The base material of a sapphire-coated nail file is a hardened file steel plate, embedded with sharp-edged corundum grains or similarly sharp abrasive material. Both sides of the file can have different filing surfaces – coarse and fine. A quality file is characterized by smoothed file blade edges. The file should be held at a slight angle and always moved in one direction along the nail. The coarse side shapes, while the fine side smooths.