Restoring luster to an old rusted tool

Be sure to check all the way in the back under the work bench. Stuff tends to bounce back there.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

I have a old Crescent 15" adjustable wrench. It is well made and works well. It is decades old. It was covered by a thin layer of rust. I removed this rust with a wire wheel and oiled it with CorrosionX to prevent further rust.

While there is no more rust, the surface looks dull due to its miscroscopic irregularity.

My question is whether there is some non-insane way of restoring its luster. (possibly it never had luster at all). But I would like it to have, if possible, a somewhat polished appearance.

Perhaps, mounting a buffing wheel on my 3450 RPM motor, and buffing it, would help? Any suggestions for a buffing wheel?

There is not much practical reason for it, but perhaps I could learn something useful.

Just give up. You'll never learn.

It's a wrench, it does not need to be pretty...but that's OK.

Step one - learn to remove light rust with a Scotchbrite (or similar wheel or pad) rather than with a wire wheel. Sorry, Tawm. Or use a bronze brush, perhaps.

Too late for that.

So, you're into buff city. You still might want to start with the Scotchbrite, working up through the grades, to clean off any gross scratches. Then move to tripoli on a hard buff, and then perhaps to something milder on a softer buff. At that point you can send it out for chrome plating if you like, or wax it to slow down re-rusting.

Ignoramus4128 wrote in news:zMOdndoNR4CWhwnanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

The Crescent wrenches that I've "restored" had all been plated [chrome?] and, with enough rust showing, the plating would come off under aggressive buffing. (I've even had large sections come off to display serious rusting underneath.)

Can you buy "Peek" metal polish where you live? That's what I use, and it works great. It's a paste which comes in a metal tube a bit like a toothpaste tube, and it's a bit more abrasive than Brasso.

Best wishes,

Chris

Do you think you could resist the urge to troll for a while, Cydrome?

Chris

Mine is not chrome plated. There is no chrome plating on it.

I have not seen such a polish personally.

Try a 3M deburring wheel. Those work very well for this purpose, although they will not follow into contours well.

GWE

I have one of those 15" Crescent wrenches, and as you imply, they are not chrome plated. The entire surface of the wrench aside from the two sides of the jaws, is rough. The two sides in question appear to have been finished and polished. The entire wrench is black oxide finished.

It would probably be pretty easy to lap the two faces on some fine polishing cloth or paper until they satisfy you, but as far as the balance of the wrench is concerned, it would look perfectly good if is was bead blasted and then black oxide finished.

Harold

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:55:35 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Ignoramus4128 quickly quoth:

WalMart, MAAS metal polish, 4oz tube, $3.27 the last I checked. Good s*it, Maynard.

-- You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. -- Mark Twain

A sewn buffing wheel, of a diameter apprpriate to the motor's HP, and some emery buffing compound (usually black, but there seems no standardization) would allow you to polish the surface to less than a mirror finish. Add another wheel with some finer grit, say chrome (often green), and you can get it to a mirror finish with some effort. Check what you can get locally for polishing compounds, or check your catalog sources.

Best of all worlds for polishing, is to be able to set up a polishing lathe, little more than a arbor with several different wheels all lined up, so as to be able to skip from one grit to the next, without having to stop to reload the wheel, or change wheels.

If you were willing to put the time into it, it would be possible to polish the whole unit to quite exceed the state of Snap-On's stuff. Or you could glass bead the parts, to get an even surface, and plate them, or blue them, or parkerize them. Electroless nickel, maybe.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I REALLY like the 3M deburring wheels. At $30 each, though.... Ugh!

Cheers Trevor Jones

Sounds like not much to lose, I will give that a try. Thanks Larry.

Larry, forgot to ask, is it in tool department, or jewelry?

Simichrome is another brand of polish to look for, as is Wenol. Probably in the Automotive section.

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:30:00 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Ignoramus13999 quickly quoth:

The MAAS metal polish is in with the cleaning supplies and mops, of course. ;)

-- If it weren't for jumping to conclusions, some of us wouldn't get any exercise.