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Caring for your tools


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Who else oils their tool handles?

"Once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year and once a year for life."

Without trying to be too self righteous, if you haven't done it recently maybe you should consider spending an afternoon giving your tools the once over. Wipe the handles down with linseed oil. Dress the hammer faces if they need it. Sharpen the chisels you need to sharpen.
Have a little tidy up or make that tool rack you've been meaning to build for the last year or so...

(It just occurred to me I've not oiled my handles in a good long while)

If you're a tight bugger like me you'll appreciate it in the long run. I appreciate this is easier said than done for the pros on here who've got more than their fair share of kit.

All the best
Andy

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Normally i sharpen my chisels immediately when i'm at work (Beltgrinder is right next to the forge).

Tools i don't use too much but got dents or heavy shrooming i lay aside and on the next day when the fire starts to burn, i care for them meanwhile.

 

For handles i care for them when they get too rough. Then i rub them with steel wool and add a bit of furniture-wax.

When i work at markets i make a tool care session when i'm forced to stop smithing because of concerts or else.

Caring everything with Steelbrush, scotchbrite and ballistol oil.

 

It's not that i want all my tools shiny and neat looking ( they definitive don't) but they shall work perfect when i need them.

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i oil handles when I make them, but in use i've not bothered. Never had problems with them drying out, with only one exception and that was an old handle anyway (by old, I mean older than me). Chisels and hammer faces get ground as I need them or just before a course when it comes to my teaching set (they get chewed up quickly, but better that than my anvils!).

 

I do occasionally procrastinate by building that tool rack though :)

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scotchbrite 

I work with Stainless steel too, thats why I have always at least one roll of this fabric to polish SS- way cheaper then the small cut pices

tHaY7Lz.png   

Works great in the blacksmith shop to polish hammers and check for dents 

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Try to keep up with getting rid of mushroom heads, especially ragged ones with cracks. I have bought some tools at the flea that were so bad on the striking head, that I blew off the excess with my 'gas hatchet.' Then I followed up with grinding and sanding.

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Try to keep up with getting rid of mushroom heads, especially ragged ones with cracks. I have bought some tools at the flea that were so bad on the striking head, that I blew off the excess with my 'gas hatchet.' Then I followed up with grinding and sanding.

Can't be said often enough. I know of two deaths from shrapnel flying off of mushroomed struck tools, yet it is difficult to get people to pay attention to this.

 

One was struck in the neck, one in the groin, both bled out.

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Over at anvilfire Jock has suggested dedicating a day to hammer maintenance every year.

 

I tend to do maintenance on days when I don't have the time to do much in the way of smithing but have the urge to work in the shop anyway. So I wander around checking all the handled tooling and set the handles tighter when needed and then stick them handle up in a shallow tray of linseed oil for several days to a week.  Then when I see linseed oil wicking up the handle over the the top of the hammer head, I take them out wipe the head and handle down with a rag---that's saturated with linseed oil after the first couple of handles and so does the protection of the head and handle routine.  Such oily rags are discarded in the coal forge.  If they catch on fire, no problem!   

 

When I'm going through the large boxes of "seconds" handles at the store/fleamarkets I hunt for ones with tiger stripe grain and try to handle my "special" tools with that; just for purty... 

 

Removal of the original store lacquer  is a must in the grip area but as I am usually modifying that area anyway....

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Spent the morning at the farm doing just this to garden tools. Wire wheeling rust, wedging heads, sharpening, lubricating pivots, and oiling all the wood and metal surfaces with mineral oil. No danger of fires with the rags, and the excess oil is OK on the skin.

 

I think I have a tiger stripe pattern in my pick handle!

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Once a month I go over machine tables and anything else made out of metal with SC Johnson Paste Wax. I like the smooth surface it gives my wood working machine tables. I also use it on hammers and hand planes and other tools. It's not good for long term storage, but cleaner then oil. 

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I tend to just stick with linseed oil for everything. It's good for handles and if you wipe it over the heads of hammers etc it will dry and go hard. 

 

I've taken to wiping a small amount onto my anvil face when I know I won't be able to do any forging for a long time. It hasn't rusted since. 

 

All the best 

Andy

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This is a good subject and might aught to be a sticky. Keeping your tools in shape is important, really important. Two issues maybe top the list:

 

If it has a blade it's supposed to be sharp, a sharp shovel or spade is a joy to use and few things will cut you worse or faster than a dull knife, dull chisels come a close second. I have an old bench grinder dedicated to blades and I tend to yell if someone wants to use it for anything but sharpening tools. The belt grinder has one coarse wheel for cleaning up mushroomed tools.

 

Fixing mushroomed tools isn't really #2 on my list of must keep right list. Mushroomed tools don't make it far past my shop door before I fix them even if I have to take the cutoff saw (hot saw) to them. so, yeah I keep all my struck tools properly chamfered and all my blades,chisels and cuts sharp.

 

I do have a couple badly mushroomed and chipped top tools I keep as is as part of my story board for demonstrations. I invite folk to examine and feel the mushroomed struck surfaces while I tell them horror stories about what can happen when the shrooms breaks off.

 

My tool handles are tight. I use Johnson's paste wax on the handles hot. Now I can put them in the shop toaster oven instead of carefully heating them in the shut off gas forge. I used to slowly heat them till they began to show signs of toasting when using the forge, then I'd slather them liberally with Johnson's and let it soak in. Let it cool and wipe with a clean rag. Old worn cotton socks tend to find their way to my shop in general but all my wax cans have an old cotton sock for an applicator.

 

I heat them to about 250-275f when I use the toaster oven and it works a treat, once hot the wood just LOVES Johnson's and soaks it up like a sponge. My oldest hammer handle has zero checks and is smooth without being slippery in your hand. I can't say how it compares with oiled handles but it does what I want and doesn't seem to need to be touched up in a couple few decades. If they get hot the wax will rise to the surface and need wiping down when it cools though.

 

My other tools get wiped down, oiled and serviced as needed. I've found using chainsaw bar oil with about 1/4 cup of Duralube engine oil additive/ gallon of bar oil is the best darned lube I've ever found for my Little Giant. I don't need to over oil it like seems to be the tradition with the babbit mains on LGs. I have very LITTLE dribble and that's mainly from the link arms and it runs smooth as warm butter.

 

Chainsaw bar oil is designed to stick and the Duralube is designed for high viscosity, very thin film lubrication and extreme thin film strength. Duralube is to help the spouse of someone who never checks the oil till the red light comes on relax a little, the engine wont seize right up. Anyway, the blend works a treat and charm in the LG AND chainsaws. I've been slowly changing over to what I'm calling "LG lube" till I come up with a better moniker, for everything that wants a drop of oil now and then. Hinges, latches, shaft/wheel barrow bearings, pivot pins, etc.

 

My hammer faces get shined up as necessary. the smoother hammer and anvil faces are the more efficiently they move metal. When You hit a piece on the anvil the metal gets pinched between the hammer face and anvil face, any movement MUST slide between them. The fewer textures like dings, nicks, rust, etc. on either hammer or anvil face the more efficiently they move the metal.

 

I've just never been able to bring myself to take a grinder to my Trenton. Before I got it someone "repaired" the edges with some sort of SS rod, whether it was build up rod or whatever, they drew the face's temper too soft and it's pretty dinged up. A missed blow or chisel strike will mark the face. It's fine if you don't hit the face but it's not smooth enough to be primo. <sigh>

 

Electric motors and such get gently blown out now and then depending on how dusty/dirty their environment has been. I cringe if I've been so lax as to get a puff of dust when I dust my motors. Where appropriate a touch of dialectric oil or grease finds it's way to old style brushings or connections like bayonets on the welder or truck plow. Man you have NO idea how nice a bit of dialectric grease makes plugging in or unplugging the truck plow connectors in subzero temps!

 

I'm sure there're more but I'm even more sure I've gone on more than long enough for now. My tools might not all LOOK pretty and shiny but they're ready to rockn'roll on call.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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