found these old pliers at a resale shop
I'm going to clean them up really nice
I'll take and post pics as it comes along
show me tools you've bought or found and restored by yourself
doesn't have to be a full restoration either, you can still share
zzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzz
this was engraved in very tiny print on one side but I'm too blind to make out what it says
I've got a WWI bayonet I was gonna do next but not if you heathens start misbehaving
forgot the pic
those aren't old, just very very very corroded and of especially low quality
probably Stanley looks like
Remember leaf rubbing as a kid?
Throw a piece of paper on it and lightly rub it with a pencil
Ask on GarageJournal forums.
Nice idea anon, I'd use rust remover and bluing compound after it's cleaned
This old singer 15 and its box, it was a pretty fun history lesson to see how they made machines in the early 1900s
Also not necessarily tools but brake, shifter and derailleur on my 1950s racing bike
Most of the restoring old stuff for me is getting old grease and dirt off the parts and then re assembling them and lubricating
Rust bluing is pretty cool and protects well, better than cold bluing does anyway. Strip the old rust with acid, let it rust thin and evenly with ferric chloride and then boil it in water for black oxide. It will still look old but also prevent further rusting pretty well.
>strip the rust
Anon, I...just degrease with acetone and boil that thing as is. It has a near polished layer of brown rust on the thing according to OP's image and would near perfectly convert to rust, I'm willing to bet. I'd boil 30+ min. But OP might still have to do multiple rust/boil cycles. After boiling, use #0000 and gently scrub by hand. After all the rust is gone, throw in a can of Kerosene to get the water out a couple days. Then throw in oil. IIRC that's how Mark Novak does it on YT.
> boil it
With that logic, wouldn’t steam be a lot better?
Some videos of what I mentioned before:
>With that logic, wouldn’t steam be a lot better?
Huh, NTA but you actually made me look into a video a little closer and I totally forgot this IS one of the methods you can do. Steam it or boil it. Your choice. Steaming is better for bigger things like guns where you don't want to buy a huge trough to boil it in.
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BTW Family Dollar sells big pasta pots for like $15 last I checked a couple years back.
Thanks. My reasoning was just that steam can get a lot hotter than water, so it should work better unless it needs the minerals in the water to work.
Is that a phosphate coating? I’m unclear on why it turns black.
No, phosphate coating would be exposing a piece of metal to phosphoric acid to achieve a matte grey-ish finish. It's also known as parkerizing, which is seen on things like the US M14 (pic related). When you boil iron oxide (active orange rust, Fe2O3), it gets converted to black oxide (Magnetite, Fe3O4). I'm not totally sure how this occurs and distilled water is theoretically preferred due to not having any minerals IIRC; I'm no chemist, just someone from /k/ who's tried it a couple times. Mark Novak might explain it better in one of his videos. All I know is rust -> boil/steam bluing is one of the oldest methods used for bluing firearms.
One additional thing you should know is that it's only going to come out as shiny as what you started with. So if you get a real rough exterior rusty tool, it's going to be blued, but dull. If you polish the hell out of the tool THEN encourage extremely fine rust in a humid box while hanging THEN boil and card it a couple times, you will be left with a much shinier blued tool. Also, Backyard Ballistics in Italy shows some alternative rust bluing methods that are faster, though require chemicals whereas the standard rust bluing requires little more than water, steel wool, oil, a degreaser, heat sources, and a metal pot.
It’s ridiculous and embarrassing that I didn’t find out about this until now. If you try and research this you get thousands of advertisements on all these proprietary pickling, etching, blueing, and patina solutions or phosphoric acid hot dip, or zinc plating/electro-plating techniques.
Even my mostly useless woke kids could do this.
This is what pisses me off the most about the internet anymore. Between bluing, taxidermy, restoration, rust removal, wood finishing and many, MANY other things it's near impossible to find what you want; you only find products selling you the "solution" that never really work how they're described. I'm just going to do a quick burst of findings that I've had over the past couple years which when I finally found them, gave me exactly what I wanted:
>Pelts can be tanned with brain (traditional), egg yolk, or some tannin (bark) based solutions in the traditional manner and other than waterproofing and some color introduced to the hide (yellow yolk, brown tannin), are pretty much just as good as commercial solutions. good luck getting info out of taxidermists even on forums, everything's a trade secret and "buy muh DVD" - god forbid we all work to improve a field past the 70s-80s when foam forms were introduced; on one of the biggest forums they filter the name of the INVENTOR of foam forms because of some drama and copyright infringement that happened over 20 fricking years ago.
>Rust bluing is better than brush on "cold" bluing and cheaper; if you don't like the look or think it's not "deep" enough, see BackyardBallistic's video where he adds the copper solution that gives a lot of bluing its depth that NO ONE FRICKING TALKS ABOUT and keeps it like it's a god damn trade secret despite being 100+ years old AFAIK
>Lanolin based solutions are god tier for rust prevention (see: Project Farm's videos). Rubber coatings only trap moisture and make the issue worse. The only better solution is possibly LubeAnon on /k/; his shit looks promising and I've yet to try it.
(cont.)
>see BackyardBallistic's video where he adds the copper solution
Oops. I don't know why the guy uses Vaseline; normally I guess I'd shit talk it but really it's just a petroleum grease so whatever, maybe he has a good reason to do this directly afterwards that has to do with the finish being "fresh". Don't store your guns with it long-term though, lol. Lithium grease is like $7 a tube that will last you 10+ years.
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>Citric acid is a poor man's rust remover. Use discount limes or citric acid powder. Frick vinegar (97% water). Citric acid removes rust and leaves you will a dull finish largely ignoring the non-rusted surface underneath. Note that bluing, otherwise known as Magnetite or Fe3O4 is ALSO rust in the eyes of acids so don't use it on blued parts unless you want to re-blue them.
>Out of all the wood finishes I've used including old boiled linseed oil and several canned solutions, oddly the best way I've found to make grain pop and get that shimmery effect on curly wood is Rustoleum clear coat, Gloss, no shit. I've also heard the same can be done with everclear and fresh shellac chips doing it the traditional way, though it requires mixing and more time spent as well as thin layers wiped on. Cabinet scrapers, wetting the wood, drying it, scraping, wetting, scraping, wetting, drying (IIRC, I might be repeating too many times lol), and then stain (optional) and coat is how you get wood to pop; don't leave the pores clogged and don't leave the fibers "flattened" IIRC.
Pic: Fe3O4, Magnetite; this is what that bright orange rust gets converted to, which is much more stable and strong. It also doesn't expand and flake like active orange rust does. Magnetite (blued steel) still needs to be oiled like bare steel but it's stronger and theoretically a little more rust resistant.
Probably replying to some of the same posters but I figured you all would appreciate some more infodumping, so mass replying with relevant stuff I've learned.
>Technically steam should blue better, yeah, since the reaction to make the blue/black magnetite is hot iron + steam H2O and the steam is way more reactive than boiling water. Bare (unreacted) iron is what reacts with steam to make magnetite. I believe the rust also converts due to magnetite being the most heat stable iron compound possible in this scenario.
>2nd the citric acid for general derusting. It's superior to vinegar (especially with some salt added) because you can mix it more concentrated and the salts it forms with rust are more water soluble, so the rust comes off easier. Since I got an ultrasonic cleaner, I sonicate to clean and degrease, then soak in acid, then sonicate again. All loose rust comes off. I made an electrolysis bucket but don't like it as much for whatever reason.
>I LOVE phosphoric acid for derusting and protecting tools that see some rough use: garden tools, machetes, and the like. Not as pretty as blue IMO but a little more durable. I use that Ospho "rust converter" or mix phosphoric acid solution with xanthan gum to make naval jelly. The coating itself is somewhat porous so it holds oil better than bare steel.
>Shellac is great for protecting metal from rust, 2-3 coats, then oil as usual on top. Put that stuff on all the non-moving surfaces of my tools like table saw tops, metal frames, etc.
>Lanolin is the best stuff ever! Beeswax + cocoa butter + liquid coconut oil is great rust protectant for stuff you don't want to smell as "sheepy", like carbon steel food knives.
t. chemist who likes restoring tools and working on guns and wood stuff
IIRC you have to be careful with phosphoric around drywall (gypsum) covered steel if I'm remembering my Backyard Ballistics videos right. IIRC he said it reacts and requires extra steps. Also yes lanolin is god-like.
The Delrin body derailleur may be a replacement as Simplex were common on budget bikes (mine worked fine).
Linky so this post is not just taken for hearsay:
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/169921-simplex-derailleurs-plastic.html
If you need a degreaser that doesn't trash plastic undiluted Pine-Sol (not generic pine oil) works well including as carb cleaner. I soak overnight in something covered (pine smell is quite strong) then pour the liquid back into the jug and flush the parts in a tub of hot water. This will not hurt your sink or plumbing and you can use the Pine-Sol to clean floors etc.
>removing rust
soak whatever it is you want to derust in vinegar overnight
ketchup works too
any acid will react with rust, and to a lesser degree bare metal as well
then you remove any remaining rust with an abrasive and mechanical action, such as sandpaper, wire wheel
> ketchup
Dude. I’m not soaking my tools in ketchup regardless of how desperate I am.
> any acid
Uric acid? Please test and report back. Describe the smell, too.
and yeah, soaking in vinegar for 12-24 to even 48 hours is the best course of action. Then take a brass brush to it to scrape off the crap, rinse with more vinegar, dry thoroughly, and hit it with some WD40... then if you're extra particular, a coating of 3 in 1 oil if you're gonna use it, or some boiled linseed oil if you're going to put it in longterm storage.
Good topic! I dont have pics handy, but around ~2015 i went around and refurbished as many of my families tools as i could find(Dad ran rental properties, brother is an electrician).
I ended up cleaning around 2 dozen tools, and used the life-time warranties to swap out some craftsman tools, and 1 pair of snap-on side cutters(surprised that one happened, but i had a friend of a friend who greased the wheels with the local snap-on guy. And before anyone gives me shit for ditching old hand-made tools for new shit thats prob. made in china... the snap on dykes were in rough shape and had that tacky 'vacuum grip' handle)
Those look ready to use except for oiling the pivot. The alloys of ancient times often stop at thin surface oxides which is a feature not a bug. Nice pliers.