oldschoolcraft
Well-known member
Most regular people will buy a new tool and rip it out of the packaging, throw it into the toolbox, and move on with their lives. But those people aren't making accounts on Internet forums to discuss tools as a hobby.
I got an order from Zoro this week and realized I spent an hour processing the tools I got. Zoro will place strong stickers with SKU barcodes on some individual wrenches. I wasn't after a complete set, but wanted a dozen individual wrenches, so it took a while to remove the adhesive. First, with my fingers, didn't want to mar the chrome. Then what was left I hit with Goo Gone cleaner and worked it with my fingers. I dont want to leave goo gone residue on the tools, so I washed them off with dish soap and water. But I didn't want to leave water on them, so I dried them and hit with a thin film of T9 Boeshield and wiped down again.
$15 to $25 per wrench so seems reasonable. Though in retrospect I should have bought the full set, in a case, saved the half hour processing time with one sticker, and just dealt with the extra few wrenches I didn't need.
I also got some lady foot pry bars and again had to deal with sticker adhesive, but also noticed my hands were turning black anytime I touched it. First, I wiped it down with Boeshield. And realized it still wasn't "clean" and I should hit it with dish soap and water. So did that, dried it, and applied Boeshield at the end and wiped it off.
Some black oxide finished tools seem to have a black oily film on them, from the manufacturing process. Unless I get corrected by others here, I'm planning to wash all of them off with Dawn dish soap and water going forward, and then drying and hitting with some kind of light oil.
Pliers are fun. I prefer if nearly all types of pliers are loose and drop open by gravity. Some brands have tighter pliers than others. I picked up some Chemical Brothers #32 compound to help break the pliers in. I shove some into the nooks of the joints, work the pliers open and closed by hand while watching TV, sometimes for 15 minutes, sometimes for 2 hours, adding more compound every 10 minutes until it loosens up. I saw a YouTuber connect his pliers to a reciprocating saw blade to speed this process up, but I'm worried about excess heat damaging the metal. I've noticed on some tight pliers that even doing it by hand will warm the joint up and I take a break.
Once the pliers drop free from gravity, on both sides, I use my dental water pik in the bathroom to blast out the compound from the joint. I then use dish soap and water to clean things out and re-hit with a water pik. Then I hit with T9 Boeshield and work the pliers again for another 5 to 15 minutes. The Boeshield draws out some black gook from inside the joint. I try to work the pliers with oil until the black stuff stops coming out. Then I add more Boeshield and put it away.
Sounds like a lot of work but most of my pliers are $50 to $100 and a lot are speciality pliers that I might use a few times per year, max. So they won't break in on their own in my lifetime.
I had considered "processing" new wrenches and sockets by measuring them down to a hundredth of a millimeter and recording the value in a spreadsheet. Mostly for my own curiosity about how tolerances from different tool companies work. Also to see how different a 7/16" and an 11mm are from within one brand. I am still interested in doing this, but I haven't figured out how to use the calipers properly for this task.
My variability in holding the calipers on a 12 point box end wrench or socket is over 0.2mm which defeats the purpose of measuring them. And a lot of my open-end wrenches have anti-slip design, aren't fully U-shaped, and it's hard to measure those, too. Six point sockets aren't as hard, but still you need to put the caliper exactly on the same middle of the flat on each side, any variation of 1 degree will be impactful down to the level of precision necessary to make this worthwhile. Maybe I need a different metrological tool for this task or need to learn to use calipers morebetter.
Feel free to make fun of my new tool processing and share what you do.
I got an order from Zoro this week and realized I spent an hour processing the tools I got. Zoro will place strong stickers with SKU barcodes on some individual wrenches. I wasn't after a complete set, but wanted a dozen individual wrenches, so it took a while to remove the adhesive. First, with my fingers, didn't want to mar the chrome. Then what was left I hit with Goo Gone cleaner and worked it with my fingers. I dont want to leave goo gone residue on the tools, so I washed them off with dish soap and water. But I didn't want to leave water on them, so I dried them and hit with a thin film of T9 Boeshield and wiped down again.
$15 to $25 per wrench so seems reasonable. Though in retrospect I should have bought the full set, in a case, saved the half hour processing time with one sticker, and just dealt with the extra few wrenches I didn't need.
I also got some lady foot pry bars and again had to deal with sticker adhesive, but also noticed my hands were turning black anytime I touched it. First, I wiped it down with Boeshield. And realized it still wasn't "clean" and I should hit it with dish soap and water. So did that, dried it, and applied Boeshield at the end and wiped it off.
Some black oxide finished tools seem to have a black oily film on them, from the manufacturing process. Unless I get corrected by others here, I'm planning to wash all of them off with Dawn dish soap and water going forward, and then drying and hitting with some kind of light oil.
Pliers are fun. I prefer if nearly all types of pliers are loose and drop open by gravity. Some brands have tighter pliers than others. I picked up some Chemical Brothers #32 compound to help break the pliers in. I shove some into the nooks of the joints, work the pliers open and closed by hand while watching TV, sometimes for 15 minutes, sometimes for 2 hours, adding more compound every 10 minutes until it loosens up. I saw a YouTuber connect his pliers to a reciprocating saw blade to speed this process up, but I'm worried about excess heat damaging the metal. I've noticed on some tight pliers that even doing it by hand will warm the joint up and I take a break.
Once the pliers drop free from gravity, on both sides, I use my dental water pik in the bathroom to blast out the compound from the joint. I then use dish soap and water to clean things out and re-hit with a water pik. Then I hit with T9 Boeshield and work the pliers again for another 5 to 15 minutes. The Boeshield draws out some black gook from inside the joint. I try to work the pliers with oil until the black stuff stops coming out. Then I add more Boeshield and put it away.
Sounds like a lot of work but most of my pliers are $50 to $100 and a lot are speciality pliers that I might use a few times per year, max. So they won't break in on their own in my lifetime.
I had considered "processing" new wrenches and sockets by measuring them down to a hundredth of a millimeter and recording the value in a spreadsheet. Mostly for my own curiosity about how tolerances from different tool companies work. Also to see how different a 7/16" and an 11mm are from within one brand. I am still interested in doing this, but I haven't figured out how to use the calipers properly for this task.
My variability in holding the calipers on a 12 point box end wrench or socket is over 0.2mm which defeats the purpose of measuring them. And a lot of my open-end wrenches have anti-slip design, aren't fully U-shaped, and it's hard to measure those, too. Six point sockets aren't as hard, but still you need to put the caliper exactly on the same middle of the flat on each side, any variation of 1 degree will be impactful down to the level of precision necessary to make this worthwhile. Maybe I need a different metrological tool for this task or need to learn to use calipers morebetter.
Feel free to make fun of my new tool processing and share what you do.