Saved from the Trash

[Komitadjie]

Thought this might be a fun topic to play with, I'm sure most of us have done a "SftT" project at some point or another.  

Here's one that amused me from this afternoon, took me an hour or so to do, all told.  Picked up this pair of *LEFT HANDED!* scissors at a local fire sale.  Sadly, was the fire sale for my favourite hobby shop... shit happens.  Anyway, I spotted these on the table of general stuff they were dumping, and offered them a buck for 'em, which they jumped at.  They were planning to trash that whole table.  



So, out with the scotchbrite and Simple Green to get rid of the soot and gunk, then out to the shop.  Shot of PBBlaster to loosen up the screw and let me separate the blades and some careful screwdriver work got them apart.  Big buff in the drill press loaded with Flitz for the chromed surfaces, and some 800-grit wet-or-dry on a walnut backer block, run wet to flat-sand the corrosion off of the inner faces of the blades.  Over to the TAS for a new grind (thank you for all the help learning to use that thing right, Rupert) and back together.  A bit of magic paddle work to get the burrs brought in just right, then a quick adjustment for tension and back into service.  A lot of the weird surface you're seeing in the second photo is fingerprints, but there were a few portions of the chrome plating that were attacked enough that the Flitz didn't quite get them mirror bright again.  Not worried about it.




They cut superbly!  Toilet paper, newsprint both with and across grain, cotton cloth, all are cut cleaning, with no slipping and no pressure on the handles required.  

I love being able to recover something from the edge of the trash bin!  

[Rupert Lucius]

Masterful - thanks for sharing the scissors "salvation".

Also, thank you for posting on the Exchange. 

Several times a week I go to your Grit Chart and think of you.

That hobby store you mentioned, was it the gun store where you sharpened knives some years ago?

Have you put any effort into measuring blade bevels (in degrees or etc)?  Member JAN shared his goniometer with us several weeks ago and got me again interested.  Another sharpener purchased Catra's least expensive model, the outer ring diameter limits  inspection to maybe pocket knives.
  
Again thanks

Rupert

[Komitadjie]

Masterful - thanks for sharing the scissors "salvation".

Also, thank you for posting on the Exchange. 

Several times a week I go to your Grit Chart and think of you.

That hobby store you mentioned, was it the gun store where you sharpened knives some years ago?

Have you put any effort into measuring blade bevels (in degrees or etc)?  Member JAN shared his goniometer with us several weeks ago and got me again interested.  Another sharpener purchased Catra's least expensive model, the outer ring diameter limits  inspection to maybe pocket knives.
  
Again thanks

Rupert

Thanks, Rupert!  No, this was not that shop, that shop closed down back during the ~2014-15 period, when guns and ammo simply weren't available and demand was insanely high.  They couldn't get any stock in to sell, ironically.  This was a local place that was a bikes-and-hobby shop.  Fortunately, it looks like they're planning to re-open after they've gotten this fixed.  


I haven't spent any great amount of time measuring the angles on these, in this case I used the marker trick (actually, with no marker, just watching how it removed the gunk from the rusted blade edges) to match the existing angles, then re-ground to match.  These are a set of knife-edge shears, obviously.  I've been tempted to get an angle-graduated recticule for my inspection scope that might give me an idea, anyway...

[Mark Reich]

Sweet job Dan! I like fixing old scissors too.

What is the marker trick?

Thanks for your contribution, it's great having you here!

[Edgepal]

One of my customers shows this picture. In direct translation from Swedish to English, this is a sheapscissor (fårsax).

z

Thomas

[Mark Reich]

Oh yeah, Dan... the marker trick. Guess I know what that is. Too much time spent offline. lol 

I found an old sheep scissor in my lawn shed yesterday! I bet the former owner used it to trim his fancy rose bushes.

Gotta be careful with those things. I tried shearing a sheep one time. Poor bugger nearly bled to death.

[grepper]

I enjoy saving old tools from the trash too.  It’s always a shame to see a tool with many years of useful life left discarded or left to die because it’s not working well simply due to lack of maintenance.
 
Here’s a large adjustable wrench I saved.  All it took was a about an hour of electrolysis, cleaning in soap and water, disassembly, lubrication with Super Lube and reassembly.  Now it’s good to go for many years and works smooth as silk.

[wadebevan]

Interesting that this thread started this weekend.  I found my pop's JPK over the weekend.
Not exactly 'from the trash', but, found after many years.

This knife has a lot of history for me.  I somewhat inherited it when I was about 12 years old.  Being a kid, I took a dremel tool to it, thinking I knew what I was doing.
The edge is going to need some reshaping and cleanup.

Best I have been able to dig up on it is that it is a Utica Cutlery - Jet Pilots Knife - circa 1966-1970.
Given that my dad was in the Navy during that period, it is my best guess.

If anyone knows anything about old military knives and has an opinion, I would love to hear it!

[pjwoolw]

Yep that is a pilots survival knife.

Good saves above! I live to restore stuff like that.

[Mark Reich]

I've worn out many wire brushes and a few cheap bench grinders cleaning up old tools, chains, you name it. The people who owned that farm before us were some of the most "loosin' it" people Ever! I bet we found over two dozen hammers, many axe heads, a mile of steel cable and chain, you name it. Crazy! 

Wade, IMHO, any knife I have that is "handed down", or given by friend, I'm careful to preserve in original condition. Making it look better almost always erases history at best.

"That's not rust, you fool! That's patina!"  

Someone used that once as a sig line on some forum....