Hi Larry !

Thanks for commiserating.  I took apart a P&W planer once,
down to the last nut & bolt, then cleaned it all up, painted
the surfaces that originally had paint on them, and put it
all back together.  Wasn't that hard; the nuts only went on
their original bolts, they were all so different.

I don't understand OldTools' aversion to the wire wheel.  If
used carefully, all it does is remove the red rust, leaving
the blue/black magnetite (the hard stuff) underneath to form
that magical "old tool" patina.  Of course, used to XS, the
wire wheel does make an ugly white mess ...

Antique microscopes are routinely restored by polishing them
to the nth degree; and those fetch the top'est dollar.  Old
furniture is worth umpteen times as much when left in the
ugliest possible condition; I guess the dolts with the biggest
bucks want to reserve the refinishing of those "gems" all to
themselves.

As to old machine tools, the only reason we can afford them is
that they have been worn out or have been neglected to the point
that they look worn out.  So, if we want to use them, we have to
fix them up.  To me, that means doing it as right as we'd like
to have found the thing in the first place.  I scraped & fit a
South Bend shaper to better than new (0.0005 inch in six inches).
It's run 30 years and still there's no metal-to-metal contact
between the ram and the dovetail in the head - no scratches at
all.  It usually makes a surface flat & parallel within 0.001
to 0.0005 inch.  But that's a recreational.crafts.metalworking
gloat, I guess.

Best regards,
George
amenex@e...

Lawrence H. Smith wrote:
>
> Welcome to the porch, George (I just got back here myself)!
> >The old machine tools also have to pass the usable hurdle; I'm way behind
> >in restoring
> >the ones I already have, so "usable" is a
> >touchy subject in this context.
>
> Oh yes, sounds fairly familiar. The big metalworking lathe was bought in
> Februrary and moved in May, the big woodworking lathe was bought and moved
> in November, and the little wood lathe was bought last May. The little wood
> lathe has had some use, but needs an idiot bearing replacement fixed
> (babbit replaced with bronze - but the bronze is (very) oversize, so the
> thing stalls if the caps are tightened, and worse yet, is out of line with
> the tailstock). The big ones are scattered over about half the shop trying
> to get cleaned up so I can put them back together without perpetuating
> years-o-filth. Eventually I'll worry about way-scraping, and I'd take
> advice on that if you have any to offer, but there's plenty to do yet
> before I get there...
>
> -Lawrence H Smith, Librarian/Computarian for Buxton School and Woodworker
> -lsmith@s...      Cats, Coffee, Chocolate... Vices to live by.