Tool care advice for people new to tool care?

I am now at a point where I'm buying more "but it for life" type tools instead of cheap crappy ones, and I'm wondering what needs to be done, and how often, to keep them in good condition?

Is there anything I should be wiping blades down with to stop rust?

Which oil is best for wooden tool handles, and what is the process for applying it?

Is there a way to sharpen hand saw blades? What tools would I need?

What is the best tool for keeping hoe and spade blades sharp?

Do you have any general advice for making tools last?

I've found the tool care PEP: https://permies.com/wiki/pep-badge-tool-care

There is an impressive list of challenges we can do to help make tools last, while getting a qualification with a badge picture attached to our Permies profiles.

Here is a badge bit for maintaining a shovel: https://permies.com/wiki/105869/PEP-BB-tool-sand-shovel

Looks like some people are using boiled linseed oil on the blade and the handle - is this a good oil to use for all metal tools with wood handles?

Hi Kate,

I use raw linseed oil. Some people consider the boiled linseed oil available at the big box stores toxic given the chemical and metallic additives they use to avoid actually boiling it - a cheaper way to get it to dry more quickly.  If you can find true boiled 100% linseed oil, without the additives, the advantage over raw is it dries more quickly.

Artie Scott wrote:Hi Kate,

I use raw linseed oil. Some people consider the boiled linseed oil available at the big box stores toxic given the chemical and metallic additives they use to avoid actually boiling it - a cheaper way to get it to dry more quickly.  If you can find true boiled 100% linseed oil, without the additives, the advantage over raw is it dries more quickly.

Thank you - that is very good to know! There are some natural oil companies that probably make a boiled one without additives, so that is what I'll look for first.

If I wanted to grow linseed in the future and press it myself, what would be the process for boiling it? Do I just carefully heat it up to a certain point as if it were tallow that I was going to deep fry with? Do I need to have a thermometer in it and wait until it gets to a certain heat?

> boiled... dries quicker...
A LOT quicker. I've use raw - once - on a hammer I think, years ago. I can still find sticky places.

> what to do...
Make what ever steps you find plausible as easy and convenient as you possibly can. Whatever good stuff you decide on will need to actually be done, over and over, for all the rest of your (or rather the tools') life. If that means putting dry safe storage for tools somewhere front and center in your space, well, that's what you need to do. If it means swabbing with oil after each use, well, that oil better be w/in easy reach when quitting time comes around. If it means sharpening the tool each day, then the sharpening stuff, _all_ of it you need, has to be w/in reach and ready when/where you need it; if you need running water or oil for sharpening, make it happen that it's there when you need it. If you decide not to use your axe for a maul, you better make sure you get a maul and it's right there when you need it.

IOW, spend some resources on addressing the real problem with tool care: Laziness and inconvenience and time consuming missing ingredients. Tool maintenance is the poor relative, easily pushed down on a To-Do list.

Regards,
Rufus

For a video about tools from the National Forest Service

part 1 of video



part 2 of video




This video series will help with how to care for tools since it is made to do just that. See An Ax To Grid for axe videos.

With the exception of carbide tools that require special tools, you can pretty much sharpen anything. Once you learn the basics, it really is just a matter of studying the tool for a second, figuring out the angles, and then sharpening it up. After a very short time you will realize how much stuff you have thrown out, that with 10 minutes of time, would have lasted forever.

I am also a minimalist by nature so I have very little money tied up in sharpening. I would say 75% of the stuff I sharpen is with a plate of glass (it is absolutely flat) and sand paper. Yes, it really is that simple and inexpensive. Round files and triangle files round out the list.

I once read a Homestead book that explained how to be self-sufficient in every way, and then he proceeded to say, "Never sharpen a chainsaw chain, send it in to have it sharpened, it is too complicated." Oh my gosh, really, you just described how to slaughter a whole cow, and now you are concerned about a chainsaw chain?

I once made a Dovetail saw completely by hand, with hand tools, filing the teeth individually using only a triangle file and saw set. If I can make a saw that easy, people can certainly sharpen saw. It is all about confidence.

My best advice on making things last is this: "If something moves, it eventually breaks. Buy the tools that have the least moving parts.

Travis Johnson wrote:My best advice on making things last is this: "If something moves, it eventually breaks. Buy the tools that have the least moving parts.

I agree. I try to find tools that are as simple as possible.

I also look for things that are attached in sturdy ways, and for wooden handles that are heavy and look solid. When the join of a tool looks really flimsy, that is where I think it's likely to fail.

Once you have those buy-it-for-life tools, obviously, maintenance is key to keeping them in good shape. Bringing them in, out of the weather seems obvious, but as I bring them in, things like shovels, forks, shears, etc., all get a few rounds in my sand&oil bucket. I keep a 5gal bucket, full of sand and oil, by the garage door. Start with dry sand, and pour in linseed oil, until the sand is pretty dark & moist with it. Then, I wipe any chunks of grime off the tools and stick them into the oily sand a few times, to simultaneously scrub off any remaining dirt, and oil them, to protect them against moisture/ rust, before hanging them up.

I like to buy quality tools that are known to last.

After utilizing them, I take care to dry them and remove any gunk buildup when possible to eliminate chances for rust and wear.

I like to do a lot of my in depth tool care in the late fall/winter season when they are not being used. I don't tend to have time during the growing season to do a lot of maintenance outside of a quick sharpening or removal of burrs.

My Best Buy-it-for-life advice is to invest seriously in tool organization.  No tool, no matter how high quality, will do you any good if you can’t find it when you need it.

As I invested in more tools, I found it was harder to keep tract of them.  This was especially true as more people in my household started using my tools and didn’t put them away (one child in particular!).

I did eventually start making little collections of job-specific tools.  For instance, I have a collection of wiring tools from when I did the electrical work on my basement.  I ended up getting a little .30 caliber ammo can that just became the standard box I would bring while wiring.  While I may have had a couple of duplicate screwdrivers, I always had a complete collection and the ammo can was the perfect size and came with a nice, locking lid.

Eric

Oil items that may rust or wrap in cloth soaked in oil
I actually use clarified coconut oil myself because I can work the oil in with my bare hands

Know what the tool is for

Know where your tools are (and off the floor)
Put it back where you would look for it.


Keep safety equipment handy, accessible and clean (,hung by a door)

1. Keep a first aid kit in your tool grab bag and make sure you have a bottle of some kind of sterile eye wash at all times in case you have bits of rust drop in your eyes that somehow missed your safety glasses, or if you get splashed with something questionable

2. Fire extinguishers -- one by main entrance, one in the tool shed by the door etc

3. Bucket of sand (for fires)

4. Paper masks, n95 and p100 respirators.

5. Face shield and safety glasses

6. Gloves of all types

7.. Ear plugs and hearing protectors

The following as needed:

Leather apron / goggles / welding helmet / welding gloves

CSA footwear (edit: certified safety standard --steel toes / steel sole shaft)

Helmet

Safety harness

Great thread, a timely reminder for me!  

I've just found my 'lost' pruning saw, and the blade has rusted (*hangs head in shame*)... can I bring it back to life?  All tips gratefully received!

Helen Siddall-Butchers wrote:Great thread, a timely reminder for me!  

I've just found my 'lost' pruning saw, and the blade has rusted (*hangs head in shame*)... can I bring it back to life?  All tips gratefully received!

Assuming it's just surface rust, I would use metal souring pad and plain wd40 (only for cleaning and unseizing, never as a long term lubricant)

A very high number emery cloth for badly rusted items. Don't try a file or ordinary sandpaper, you get really deep scratches and not all of the rust.

For tools that I want to be really smooth (plastering float)  I would use something softer like a plastic scouring pad. (Always wash and dry plastering tools immediately after use)


For protection, pretty much anything fat based, oil, grease, wax. Beeswax smells nice.

If you happen to find a tool that you buried in the garden last year and it's really rusty, dilute some molasses in a can of water and drop the tool in it for a week or five. It will look like nothing's happening for a while and then all the rust will be gone- leaves metal a sandblasted looking grey colour- and yes Americans- that's the correct spelling of grey
For protecting hand tools- blades and wooden handles- a cheap fix is just plain old cheap margarine- doesn't stink or drip or discolour handles and you already have it in the kitchen.

I find that winter time is a great time to really go over tools and inspect each. Grease joints, oil handles, sharpen blades. Chainsaw blades aren't that hard to sharpen but they do have a point where they can't be sharpened anymore and should be replaced. They do take time so winter (in N hemi) is a good time.

For tools with engines, know which ones should be run dry leaving no gas behind, and which ones could have stabilizer put in the tank. Inspect fuel and oil lines, replace air filters, check carbs for replacement, spark plugs and the like.

The worst is getting going in the spring and nothing wants to start on those first pulls.

Don't forget to sharpen trowels and smaller hand tools, even snips and cutters. Makes work easier when less pressure is needed to cut.

I've heard that one should coat the handles of wooden tools once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, and every year thereafter.

Reckon that would work.

Helen Siddall-Butchers wrote:
I've just found my 'lost' pruning saw, and the blade has rusted (*hangs head in shame*)... !

😂

Helen Siddall-Butchers wrote:
.. can I bring it back to life?  All tips gratefully received!

You should be able to improve it a lot with a wire brush, wipe down with oil cloth and repeat.
If you don't have one (,or it's lost , your wire scouring pad in the kitchen will work, along with coconut oil

I just saw James' reply, which is great, and more professional

One thing to consider is levels of care.  Think about the maintenance schedule for an automobile - there are shorter intervals with a few simpler tasks, then at progressively longer intervals there are more things to check / take care of.

So, with respect to tools, the basic interval could be with each use, which should be to clean and put away at its most basic.  I like the idea of oiled sand suggested earlier.

Then there are the longer interval items like annual prep for a motorized tool as it goes away for a season it isn't used (like a lawn mower for winter or snow blower once expected snowfall is done).

I've also found that when I notice a tool needs attention, I'd better take care of it then and there...otherwise, the next time I pick up that same tool it will still need attention.  I also struggle a bit as we have some "his" tools and "her" tools - one that comes to mind is a bypass pruner with a rotating handle shaped for right-handed folks (I'm left handed so it's difficult for me to use).  Since I don't use it, I don't necessarily think of giving it attention and She Who Must Be Obeyed isn't as fussy with the tools to note that it needs attention.  This fall, I could see that it was a sad tool, so I made a point of bringing it home.  With some cleaning, sharpening and oiling, it was much happier, as was She when it worked much better (sigh).

That said, tool maintenance isn't a strong point for me.  We all have areas for improvement.  This thread being in the Dailyish and the early link to the PEP Badge Bits may prompt me to head into the rabbit warren and take care of a few things whilst potentially gaining some Permies street cred.

For tool sharpening, I always carry a speedy Sharp in my pocket. Small enough to go unnoticed in the pocket bulk category and I'll actually sharpen things when I should if I have this in my pocket.

As best I can tell, it's a carbide lathe bit soldered onto a handle.

It carves steel incredibly quickly. You have to be sure you're at the right angle which a few passes on a dirty or rusty blade will show you. if you're bringing up shiny new metal all the way across the edge you're good.

https://speedysharp.com

People sell them on Ebay and Amazon too if that's easier.

I use whatever cooking oil for wood handles. Seems to work fine.

There are many tools to simplify and speed up chainsaw sharpening. Everything from electric tools with a guide to hit the right angle to bolt on guides for filing the correct angle manually.
Lots of videos on YouTube as to what you're looking to do to get it right.
project farm on YouTube has a vid comparing some.

Ra Kenworth wrote:Oil items that may rust or wrap in cloth soaked in oil
I actually use clarified coconut oil myself because I can work the oil in with my bare hands

That's really good to know that clarified coconut oil will work - I've never seen clarified coconut oil - would ordinary coconut oil work?

Will any kind of oil or fat help to preserve tools?

British Class coconut oil is the cheapest I've found and comes in a tin, and I bought a few dozen cans about 7 years ago, stored in a cool place, zip locked to keep moisture from the cans, mine should last for a few more years until I run out.

Yes any oil or fat, it's just that coconut oil is in the kitchen where the wire scrubbers are! 😂

I prefer not to use rendered fat as it will go rancid and make the oil cloths stink and maybe attract wildlife.

Clarified coconut oil is much much cheaper than the virgin stuff (that smells like coconut) which I save for uncooked food consumption.

You can use the nice coconut oil though

hemp oil is great for oiling wood but it's expensive

You shouldn't fry with unsaturated fats and oils by the way -- better to burn ,/ smoke coconut oil or rendered fats : higher smoking point and our bodies at least know what to do with oxidated saturated fats

Jay Wright wrote:If you happen to find a tool that you buried in the garden last year and it's really rusty, dilute some molasses in a can of water and drop the tool in it for a week or five. It will look like nothing's happening for a while and then all the rust will be gone- leaves metal a sandblasted looking grey colour- and yes Americans- that's the correct spelling of grey

Great idea!  I've got some molasses, I'll have to try that on some old rusty tools I inherited!  (I use "grey" for the more yellow-toned color, and "gray" for the more blue-toned one, LOL!)

Jay Wright wrote:For protecting hand tools- blades and wooden handles- a cheap fix is just plain old cheap margarine- doesn't stink or drip or discolour handles and you already have it in the kitchen.

Ummmm... who on here has margarine in their kitchen?  (I can hear cries of "sacrilege!" coming from far and wide...)  I've never had it in mine, although my parents did at times.  Yuck!  My best friend once asked me what I did different that made my toll house chocolate chip cookies taste so much better than hers.  I said I just followed the recipe on the chip bag.  She said she did too.  Upon further discussion we determined that I used butter as per the recipe, while she substituted margarine thinking it was interchangeable.  HUGE difference in taste!  That said, probably the best use for the stuff if anyone does have it would be slathering it on tools!  XD

I use margarine on my sandwiches at lunch time. It's summer here and our kitchen is the hottest room in the house. I can keep the butter in the fridge and scrape bits off and rip holes in the bread, or I can leave the butter on the bench and pour it like canola oil. I do prefer butter in my cooking and on my veges at dinner time but I'm happy to eat margarine. I'll probably burn in hell for it but I'm willing to risk it.

Car enthusiasts, rather than use  BLO, use Penatrol, a paint additive you can buy at paint stores for oil based paints, to make them flow better.  It does what BLO does, but holds up better against moisture.


SIDE NOTE: They don't and never did actually boil flax seed to make boiled linseed oil [BLO]. Though they did heat the oil, the name came from that they blew air through it so the oxygen could polymerize the seed oil.

Artie Scott wrote:Hi Kate,

I use raw linseed oil. Some people consider the boiled linseed oil available at the big box stores toxic given the chemical and metallic additives they use to avoid actually boiling it - a cheaper way to get it to dry more quickly.  If you can find true boiled 100% linseed oil, without the additives, the advantage over raw is it dries more quickly.

The kind of maintenance you have to turn to depends on a few different factors. For example:

Where I live, moisture by way of humidity is not a problem. So I don't have to worry about rust, other than that which might be caused by a LATE friend setting his Coke down on my machined table top of my cabinet saw.

Still, I and others apply protective coatings. Some settle for floor waxes, others rely on commercial products. I like Corrosion X. The more you use it, the more you like it.  It's is about the toughest protection I've used on my many machined surfaces. I opted for the pump spray and, years in, it's still going strong.  If you buy some, don't make the mistake of buying the more heavy duty version for use on machined surfaces like drill presses and table saws. It doesn't harden, but will protect plow disks or what-have-you from harsh rains and snows.

If I were just protecting a shovel, loppers and so on, I'd go with the Penetrol approach. As I pointed out elsewhere, car enthusiast use it to protect hard to get to spots, like inside doors. It's supposed to be for oil based paints, to make them flow better, but it works off label too.

Then there is the matter of the type of tool. If that same friend set a Coke can down on my mill, which is covered in oil, he might have lived to a ripe old age.

Nail guns, staplers and so on need to be oiled regularly. The pneumatics just need a few drops down the air hose connection from time to time.



The simple of it is, what are we maintaining and protecting?  Woodworking equipment requires a different approach than metal working equipment. As does gardening equipment.

Garden and lawn tools can take a lot of abuse, but wood handles dry out, if left in the sun, and fiberglass handles can become horrible sources for fiberglass splinters.  

For the former, you may have to soak the handle in oil, if all the protective finish is gone. Thinned non-hardening oil thinned would, if the handle is allowed to soak in it, absorb the oil, which would cause it to swell, which would cause many of the cracks and splits to close back up.  That could be done by just gluing a cap on a PVC pipe, filling it with oil and putting the tool handle in it to soak.  

Of course, you are going to end up with an oily handle, so would need gloves, when using it. You can wash the oil off using dish soap and doing so will not negate your restoration attempts.

If the protective finish is just starting to go, touch it up.  Chances are, it was finished in lacquer, so you don't have to sand before applying the touchup.  

If you're doing the oil thing, once you are happy with how much has soaked in (say a week or so down the road, and you've added more as it dropped, you can remove the excess and apply a poly finish. Hardening oil would work, but it's one of the worst finishes to rely on for protection from the elements.

As to the fiberglass handle, you can just apply a coat of paint to both deal with any splinter problem already occurring or to stop it from happening. I'd prefer an oil based paint for this, but make do with what you have.


In light of the beating things take from the sun and the elements, the first, obvious, maintenance tip would be, put the tool away, when done with it.


It's a good idea to have an assortment of lubricants. For example: 3-In-One Oil, spray silicone, graphite spray or other dry lubricant, grease, gun oil, and penetrating fluid. So armed, you can get rid of that door squeak in the house or the car (don't forget the hood and trunk hinges. The dry lubes don't pick up dust and such, so work well for saw trunnions and other things, like key holes, where you don't want something that will hold on to dust.

Think of WD-40 as real temporary lube. It's said it's for water displacement. It sure will do that, if you spray it inside a distributor cap and let the sparks fly (you may or may not need a new cap).