Reconditioning old tools - several questions

[BigE]

I apologize if this is covered somewhere, but I did not find it.

My grandfather passed away a few years ago. He was a GM Master Mechanic with over 40 years in the field. My father went over and brought back his tools and shop equipment. Most of it, he passed on directly to me. I only recently went over to Dad's house to pick them up (not a lot of room in my garage and it needs work before I set it up). In any event, I now have a large, varied collection of hand tools from the past 50 years as well as two pretty cool toolboxes. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go through all of the tools, but my current questions concern ratchets. I have several of them of differing sizes, brands, ages and designs.

1. How do you restore the finish? I have one 1/2" ratchet that has a LOT of surface rust. I don't want to take a sander to it. I'm afraid mechanical rust removal will remove the grain of the metal as well.

2. Can you rebuild these things yourself? With my Craftsmans, I'd just turn them in to Sears. However, there's a beautiful Snap On that skips teeth and I'm not letting it out of my sight.

3. Is there anything to do or not do with them? Do soak them in oil, don't soak them, etc.?

I hope to post pictures of the collection once I get all of it over to my place.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[mjozefow]

Evaporust will be your friend here.

WE NEED PICS THOUGH!

 

[tonydanzah]

evaporust....

 

[BigE]

Holy smokes! That stuff looks awesome. I'm assuming you can't soak the whole ratchet (ie. disassembly is a must)? What do you put on afterwards to keep it from rusting again? I don't know what's on the surface of my craftsmans to keep them as cast, but I'd rather not paint these ratchets.

 

[arkangel06]

Get a rebuild kit from snap on.

 

[BigE]

Thanks, arkangel06. I'll check their website to see if I can get it there.

To tide you guys over, here are two teaser pictures.

 

[sevnd3z28]

Man I'm diggin' that box! That thing is sweet! Looking forward to more pics.

 

[arkangel06]

Cool box!

Do you plan on restoring it?

 

[BigE]

I'll clean it up, but I hesitate to "restore" it because it wouldn't be the way Grandpa had it. The paint isn't really as bad as it looks. That evaporust may take enough rust off to give it a nice patina. Another teaser for you guys: this is the "small" box.

 

[arkangel06]

Another teaser for you guys: this is the "small" box.

Oh Rly????

 

[BigE]

Yeah, the other is a standup roller of some manner. It's not a Craftsman, at least not like any I've seen. It's well-aged, well-loved and full of more tools. It doesn't seem as deep as your typical, modern roller. I'm not going to bring it over until I get to the garage to the layout stage. But I can't wait to check it out further and scrutinze all of the tools. Looking through the grey box above, I found several tools that I had to look up to figure out what they were. There are several socket sets in thin metal boxes. Some have SK or S&K on them. Look very well built. Once I take inventory, I'll post up again to ask a ton of questions!

 

[DavidB]

Just so save mjozefow the trouble: What kind of vise is that in the background of the first pic?

More pics!!

Evaporust will would great for you as stated above. Keeping oil on the outside of the derusted tools will keep them from rusting again...assuming you don't let them dry out.

Do not, under any circumstances, take the old Craftsman ratchets back to Sears to exchange for new ones. The old ones are tons better than the new ones. If you don't want to goto the trouble of trying to get them cleaned up post them up for sale or trade for new ratchets. I imagine you'll get lots of responses.

There is a good chance that the grease in the ratchets may have dried up. Try taking them apart, cleaning, and regreasing them. They may end up working fine.

 

[BigE]

I had to look. It is a King Brand 4" vise. It came from Grandpa as well. I don't know anything about it.

So just a thin layer of oil will protect the tools even under use (ie. without slipping)? I'd like to keep them from rusting just sitting in the box, but all of them will be in service. No decorative tools here.

I wouldn't take any vintage Craftsman tools back for replacement. The ratchets I was referring to were included in the set my father gave me when I turned 16. That seems like forever ago, but it really wasn't too long ago. The tools came in a blow-molded case (brand new) so they weren't vintage.

I took the Snap On that I was concerned with apart. There was grease caked all inside of it, but it had dried. I cleaned it up and found that the tips of a few of the teeth had sheared off, so I'll need to replace the gear. How do you remove the selector lever? It looks like it has a brass piece that has been staked. If I drive it out, I'm sure it would have to be replaced. Is that SOP?

Last question: a few of these ratchets (varying brands) have what appear to be oil ports on the tops of the heads. It looks like a ball bearing inserted into a brass seat from the inside of the ratchet. It's not a zerk fitting as it is flush to the surface. How are you supposed to make use of it? Do you use oil or grease? One of the ratchets had OIL imprinted above the port.

 

[Bruce Lancaster]

Selector comes with kit, old one is destroyed, but if that mecanism seems good you can just clean the area with solvent and re-lube the old parts in place.
Ball in oiler is pushed down slightly with the tip of oil can spout and oil introduced there.
I generally disassemble, swizzle in solvent, and relube from inside and ignore the oil port.

 

[Garage_Mahal]

What if I want to shine my tools after using evaporust? These are some classic Mac and Snappys that I got at an auction.