Cleaning old tools

Soldato
Joined
5 Aug 2013
Posts
6,970
Location
Shropshire
This is my first attempt at cleaning old tools.

These plier's have been with me for well over 50 yrs -Got them for 2/6p from Woolworths. They did have "Made in Germany" on plastic handles but that had gone as well as the plastic -Brittle and breaking off. - The pliers were very dirty and a bit rusty so why not give it a go - They make it look so easy on Youtube.

Yes well -- I attacked it with a bench grinder -angle grinder -dremmel and loads of sandpaper- spit and metal polish and lots of new French words in different order.

The handle covering is heat shrink - two layers of 9.7mm and one layer of 12.5 - I did try 19mm red but it looked rubbish probably because it was over size.
Ideally you need to remove the rivet holding two parts together but I do not have the tools for that.
There are a few dings in it due to rust but trying to grind them down that much was beyond my tool capacity.

I have a old pair of nail pullers so might do them next.

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A 24hr or 48hr soak in white vinigar is very good for getting rust/crud off, I'd certainly do that as a pre-clean before getting the elbow grease on it. Will damage any rubber though, so probably best to put the tool in a jam jar or something and just fill with vinigar to the appropriate level and let it soak.

It can eat into the metal if you leave it soaking too long, so you should periodically check it, maybe one or twice a day to see how it's going.
 
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I didn't take a picture because at the time I didn't think I would do it - but as I went along I thought - I should have took a before pic.

Just sit there with your eyes shut and visualise a cacky pair of pliers with hardened and broken plastic grips and just black and rusty. :D
 
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