repair porn - antique rusty cleaver restoration

Caught my other half quietly watching dodgy looking videos late last night.

Thought I'd share...

My friend has found this rusty old cleaver on the steel waste. I really liked the unique look of it with the hook instead of a hole to hang it on the wall. As christmas holidays were just around to happen, I knew I had to pick a project that I have all the material ready in my shop, because everybody was in vacation. So i choose to restore this cleaver.
The disassembling was done very quickly, so was the sandblasting.
The original handle was held in place with the peened tang. I didn't really like the shape of the handle and I also didn't wanted to peen the handle again. Si I decided to make a more ergonomic nice looking handle. That's why I shortened the tang around 45mm and drilled three 5mm holes in it. That went very well as the tang wasn't hardened. Next I wanted to make it mirror polished. I startet with the belt sander to grind away all the pitting from the rust. Then it was time for hand sanding. I started with 120 grit, after all the scratches were gone from the belt sander I moved on with 240. Then 400, 1000 and 1200 at the end. I then had a fine enough surface to be able to mirror polish it on the cotton buffing wheel. It took quite some time to do that, but the end result came out absolutely amazing.
Moving on to the handle. I decided to make a three part sandwich. I started by making a spacer out of smoked oak. Cut out the shape of the tang and then glue it on to a piece of pear tree wood. Then I was able to file the spacer to the same tapered thickness of the tang. After gluing the other side of the handle on and drilling the holes for the rivets through I could start to rough shape the handle with a rasp.
I decided to make three screwable brass rivets. I applied some Loctite on the threads and tighten them together. After that I filed the slotted heads away, flush to the handle. Then it was time to give the handle a final sanding with 120, 240, 400 and 1000 grit and apply linseed oil for the final touch. And after sharpening this job was done completely.
I really liked to work on this cleaver. Mirror poilishing was a lot of work and also the work on the handle was quite challenging, but I really liked the end result and I think it speaks for itself.

Such craftsmanship to restore that cleaver to an object of beauty.  Bravo

He has great taste in dodgy videos. I love watching restoration projects like that.

Phew, is it hot in here or is it just me?

Wow, way to blow up fifteen minutes of my morning! :-)

What impresses me most is the ten to thirty thousand dollars worth of top line, new-looking, minutely-cleaned-and-maintained shop equipment and tools that got deployed on that project, plus some large uncounted number of hours of skilled machinist labor.  My first thought is "Why?" and the only answers I can find are (a) everybody needs a hobby and (b) the same reason anybody grows a tomato: because it's not about the labor-and-materials cost, it's about the fact that there's no sum of money in the world that can buy you a sun-warmed fresh-from-the-plant perfectly ripe tomato.  Or that better-than-new cleaver-shaped art artifact.

I'll admit I thought making his own Chicago rivets was over-the-top, but admittedly the ones I know how to buy are made of thin stamped stuff by comparison to his stout perfectly-machined ones.  And then I saw that his final move was to mill away the screw slots and polish them off flush, and his purpose became clear.  Obsessive?  Arguably.  But effective.

Repair porn, indeed.  Thanks for sharing!

I sure needed this.

I wonder what microphone he is using?

Personally, I think this is much less harmful to domestic bliss than the HGTV "home reno porn" that women watch.

She: "Look honey, they moved two structural walls and put in a custom kitchen. All in 30 minutes! Why don't we do that!"

He: (cringes in horror)

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Personally, I think this is much less harmful to domestic bliss than the HGTV "home reno porn" that women watch.

To be fair, he's totally renovating the whole of the downstairs too. I've been promised a shower, a rocket mass heater *and* an indoor loo by Christmas!

Fair enough.

He seems to have progressed to 'big wood porn' tonight...

That's an energetic guy you have. I'd like to buy him a beer sometime and compare notes.

Well if ever you're in the area....

Nice video for inspiration!
Not sure the average person would have the tools or skills to do this level of restoration but don't let that stop you.
There is plenty of cutlery out there that need minor restoration that you can hone your skills on.  Many times you will end up with a better quality knife that you could otherwise afford..
There are many knife supply companies out there that make it much easier for the average person to do the necessary repairs with minimal equipment.
I found a DASCO 120-8 HAND MADE clever for $15 that needs only the edge reworked and blade staining. The quality of the clever compared to most modern ones on the market makes it worthy of a little love and attention.

I enjoyed every minute of this restoration.  Such craftsmanship.  Very impressive.

Wonderful that you took a well made tool that can test the use of time, and restore it to nearly new. It will last another 50-100 years. Unlike today's cleavers and knives, that won't last a generation. Bravo! And besides that, the craftsmanship and tools you have, your skill, your ability to see use in such an old object that takes hours of your time to restore (what? I could be playing video games?), is impressive.