Rusty tools

[Viper254]

Thanks Weedo - I'll be taking that advice and drilling the duff handles out instead.

Lump hammer - that's the name I've heard before!

[Green Aura]

My daughter works in a Drs surgery. A few weeks ago she came home with an old ultrasonic cleaner, which the practice manager wanted to throw away. No one knew if it worked, but it looked unused!

Anyway, guess what, it's brilliant for removing rust from small items - just followed the instructions with a bit of washing powder and water and 15 minutes the smaller drill bits came out rust free. In truth they weren't badly rusted but it would have been a complete pain trying to clean them by hand.

Obviously not everyone can play but I was dead chuffed. Now I want an industrial sized one.

[Flo]

I have a question. Other than finding rusty tools, do you lot really let your tools get rusty? My stuff is too well used to have such a problem.

[Green Aura]

Not the stuff that's used regularly but we do find some that do, mainly due to our storage having been damp. That's hopefully rectified now.

[Viper254]

The only outbuilding I have is really damp and dilapidated - it's a constant uphill struggle to keep stuff from rusting. Hence the need to build a proper outhouse.

[Weedo]

I Inherited a plethora of old and very rusty tools when we bought the block - the storage shed took weeks to clean out and the floor was about a foot deep in rat droppings. Our block floods and some of the tool boxes (under the rat stuff) had gone under water at least once; they are still in the tool boxes and were never attended too, probably for at least 30 years. As well as this there are axes , hammers, shears, shovels etc. thrown in various corners awaiting new handles that never arrived. Given the rubbish steel in current day tools it is well worth the effort to clean these up - even if the cost of a good handle is now higher than the cost of buying a cheap replacement tool.

[Flo]

I have a new next door neighbour (well if a month or 2.5 is new) who has decided to take the garden in hand. She wants to lower the back hedge. She went back to the house she moved out of (now taken over by her son) to look in the shed for a saw to work on the hedge. It was a foot deep in rust having been left in the garden and needed sharpening. Seems I'm the only one of my family who has seen an old saw sharpened. As son-in-law said the price of a new one is so small as to make it pointless spending the time with sharpening the small teeth after taking off the rust. Anyway neighbour gave it a try and threw it on lawn saying it was dangerous in that it was so blunt. Even had we taken the time to remove the rust it would have been dangerous. I watched her place it in the general waste bin (tip closed) and it has gone the journey.

She also produced a pair of shears for hedge cutting. Rusty but could be cleaned up. I told her where these could be sharpened when lock down allows the appropriate shop to open. But I did warn her that there was a cost and that the hedge in question consisted of stems too thick for said shears. She has since bought a cheap set of secateurs and made a dent in the hedge to be lowered.

There's a moral here - buying cheap doesn't always do well if you want to hand down your tools to a future generation - seems that the saw belonged to her father who died 15 years ago and hasn't been used since. Hand shears the same.

But the lady in question is price conscious and really doesn't see the point in investing in good standard gardening gear. Mind you, having met some of her family I doubt if it would be an investment as she's the pick of the gardeners but has forgotten anything she ever picked up from past generations.

[Green Aura]

I think it's probably a dilemma for many people. We've become such a disposable dependent society, especially as the price difference can be staggering.

My biggest sin is paintbrushes - my Dad used the same brushes for as long as I can remember, got a beautiful finish on his glosswork and cleaned them meticulously. We buy big bundles of cheap brushes that leave brush marks in anything I paint, but at least I don't have to clean the damn things.

I regret that my Dad's tools which were cared for meticulously, as above, were given away by my mother because she thought we wouldn't want them, but didn't think to ask. In truth, however, we probably hadn't given her any inkling we'd use them at that time.

[Odsox]

I have 3 tools that were my grandfather's, a flat hoe, a sickle and a mattock. The mattock is such a quality item that it must have been a very expensive item, given that it must be at least 80 years old, and apart from a new handle is as good as new.
By the way, what name do you call a sickle? It seems strange for me to call it that, but I'm sure the names I know are both dialect. I know it as either a "swap or swop" or a "bagging hook".

[Green Aura]

A sickle's the thing on the CCCP flag. Can't think of another example

[Odsox]

A sickle's the thing on the CCCP flag. Can't think of another example

So what did you cut grass with up in your neck of the woods?
We used a scythe which was for quality lawn type grass, and a bagging hook (sickle) for rough grass and nettles.
All of this of course was before affordable motor mowers and strimmers/brush cutters

[Green Aura]

You're supposed to cut grass? Maybe that's where I've been going wrong.

We had one tiny patch of lawn in full shade all day, completely useless - everywhere else was veg or roses and, to be honest, I couldn't tell you how he cut it. I don't recall us having a lawn mower, sickle or scythe.

[Weedo]

The old tools are well worth restoring - the steel in the modern ones is absolute rubbish. However, I am guilty of buying the modern and cheap hand saws for rough work like cutting fibre cement sheet and plasterboard. The good saws are too valuable to use for these jobs - I resharpen these myself so it only costs a couple of files every so often. The modern $10 ones do a good job but cannot be re-sharpened, the steel is far too hard.

The main problem I have these days if finding good quality, well shaped handles

[ina]

Yep, old stuff is best. I have a wonderful old pen knife - one of my father's - probably from just after the war. Still sharp as anything, and strong - and it's seen a bit of abuse...

(And apart from tools - just pulled out all my old sheets, looking for something to use for masks: I have 2 inside-out sheets left, one of them with my mother's initials, so that must be much older than me. Even the one with my own initials is about half a century... Excellent quality. Too good for masks!)

[Flo]

Sorted out the neighbour with the rusty saw, found a wooden handled set of loppers which seem to be doing the job and which aren't likely to go rusty at least on the handles. And are the correct implement for what she wants to do. Funny but coming from two generations of gardeners, she has forgotten anything she ever learned.